Lot Essay
Newspaper is from a group of thirty-two bundles that bring to mind stacks ready to be recycled. Each version was produced in an edition of five or ten, and all were originally installed in the 1993 exhibition Robert Gober at the Dia Center for the Arts. Gober implanted his own manipulated photographs into the layouts based on various national newspapers. In Newspaper, a photograph that initially appears to be a generic bridal advertisement is, in fact, an image of Gober wearing a wig and a wedding dress. The print also displays Gober as a bride in juxtaposition with a story about the Vatican condoning discrimination against homosexuals. These works, which are related to the artist's 1989 sculpture of a satin wedding dress, are concerned with marriage as an institution and rite of passage, which had been denied in the United States to the LGBT community.