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Lot Essay
Throughout his oeuvre, Gober has investigated the psychological and symbolic power of the objects of our everyday lives. Depicting beds, sinks, drains and newspapers often in juxtaposition with disembodied legs and other body parts, the artist creates an uncanny resemblance of the mundane yet disturbingly altered world. Gober painstakingly constructs his universe from fragile and sensitive materials, imbuing the spaces occupied by his work with a deep sense of potential loss and longing. Within his singularly astute and perverse vision, Untitled Candle offers a unique hope of remembrance and renewal.
Whether illuminating the darkness of ignorance with truth or functioning as a votive, the candle as an object of ritual and religious symbolism has near universal relevance. Gober has consistently returned to nonfunctioning light sources as a motif having fabricated light bulbs from dried and cracked clay, beeswax and blown glass. In Gober's hands, deeply informed by his conflicted Catholic upbringing, the potential use of the candle (phallus) is suspended in perpetuity. It is precisely this extinguished potential that provides the illuminating power of Untitled Candle. Produced in 1990, at the height of the AIDS crisis in America, the sculpture is transformed into a material prayer for those lost to the pandemic. A vanitas symbol, yet one that will never be lit. This difference provides the sculpture with an enduring power to embody the brevity of life and forever to live as a domestic monument to those lost.
Whether illuminating the darkness of ignorance with truth or functioning as a votive, the candle as an object of ritual and religious symbolism has near universal relevance. Gober has consistently returned to nonfunctioning light sources as a motif having fabricated light bulbs from dried and cracked clay, beeswax and blown glass. In Gober's hands, deeply informed by his conflicted Catholic upbringing, the potential use of the candle (phallus) is suspended in perpetuity. It is precisely this extinguished potential that provides the illuminating power of Untitled Candle. Produced in 1990, at the height of the AIDS crisis in America, the sculpture is transformed into a material prayer for those lost to the pandemic. A vanitas symbol, yet one that will never be lit. This difference provides the sculpture with an enduring power to embody the brevity of life and forever to live as a domestic monument to those lost.