Robert Gober

Monument Valley
2007

A torn receipt with purple ink showing a transaction from Monument Valley Tribal Park, thanking the customer and dated 03.15.'06 Wednesday. It lists an entry fee of $5.00 with a total of $5.00, paid in cash, served by clerk 1, with the number 019452 and time 12:22. The background is white and the receipt's edges are jagged, indicating it was torn from a booklet or pad.

At first glance, Monument Valley appears to be a mundane, disposable receipt for a five-dollar entrance fee to Monument Valley, a region of the Colorado Plateau within the Navajo Nation Reservation known for its vast sandstone buttes. But like many of Robert Gober’s works, it is meticulously handmade with characteristics so subtle that they might be easily overlooked. Produced as a hand-crafted wood engraving in an edition of fifteen prints on Legion interleaving paper, this receipt is replete with the rips and tears that lend it a sense of authenticity and use.

Not on view

Date
2007

Classification
Prints

Medium
Wood engraving

Dimensions
Sheet (irregular): 3 9/16 × 1 11/16in. (9 × 4.3 cm)

Accession number
2007.104

Edition
2/15

Publication
Printed by The Grenfell Press; published by Robert Gober

Credit line
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase, with funds from the Print Committee

API
artworks/30418