ROBERT GOBER "HANGING MAN / SLEEPING MAN" WALLPAPER, 1989

Robert Gober (b. 1954) is one of the most influential American artists to emerge in the 1980s. Drawing on the language of Minimalism and Conceptualism while introducing deeply personal and culturally specific imagery, Gober creates an uncanny space between the familiar and the disturbing.

His practice transforms familiar domestic objects and images into psychologically charged encounters with sexuality, religion, vulnerability, and social violence. Sinks, beds, doors, wallpaper, and other commonplace forms recur throughout his work, but are rarely what they first appear to be.

"Hanging Man / Sleeping Man" exemplifies Gober’s ability to turn domestic material into something deeply unsettling. Printed as a repeating wallpaper pattern, the imagery depicts a sleeping white man alongside a lynched black man. The contrast is deliberately jarring. From afar it appears to be a pleasing pattern on a warm cream background...upon actually inspecting the work one is confronted with a disturbing repetition of images. 

Gober culled these images from disparate sources: the hanging figure was found in a political illustration at the New York Public Library, while the sleeping man appeared in a Bloomingdale’s advertisement.

Wallpaper traditionally evokes decoration, privacy, and domestic comfort, yet Gober turns its repetitive surface into a vehicle for confronting racial violence and historical trauma. The pattern's repetition suggests the persistence of violence within American history and culture.

Originally conceived as part of a larger room installation at the Paula Cooper Gallery in New York, the wallpaper was displayed alongside sculptures and domestic objects, further collapsing the distinction between private life and broader social realities. When the Art Institute of Chicago reinstalled the seminal work in 2009, Gober provided an accompanying text reflecting on its imagery and historical significance. He explained that the wallpaper was intended to evoke “the ugly and unforgettable reality of the United States’ history,” while its repetition suggested that violence was “not an isolated event” but had, in his words, “become our background.”