Robert Gober Quotes

For the most part, works of mine are untitled. There was a brief period where I had poetic titles for works, and they're embarrassing now. I think, for the most part, it's not something that I have talent for.

I think art is about human existence. Almost by default I'm expressing my experiences as a human.

When you grow up being taught to worship, whatever that means, there is an array of body-rich symbols: tears, blood, crucifixion, the stations of the cross, transubstantiation ... Faith is a belief in something that is irrational, and so to have faith, there is some correlation there with the belief in the art.

You grow up trying to interpret, worshipping, visual symbols. It's a body-soaked imagery that you're looking at.

My problem painting from my life was I found that you can't paint dirt without romanticising it.

Whenever I give a talk about my work I am invariably asked who my influences are. Not what my influences are, but who.. As if the gutter, misunderstandings, memories, sex, dreams, and books matter less than forebears do. After all, in terms of influences, it is as much the guy who mugged me on Tenth Street, or my beloved dog who passed away much too early, as it was Giotto or Diane Arbus.

I was a gay man living in the epicenter of 20th-century America's worst health epidemic.