diff --git a/pyopencl/array.py b/pyopencl/array.py
index 05af9f4e3c733a8b9c40883c8cd865853da3d3c3..c6e364f58519b7ba2cfea5f1aa27df1510119b7f 100644
--- a/pyopencl/array.py
+++ b/pyopencl/array.py
@@ -438,6 +438,9 @@ class Array(object):
 
         # }}}
 
+        if dtype == np.object:
+            raise TypeError("object arrays on the compute device are not allowed")
+
         self.queue = queue
         self.shape = shape
         self.dtype = dtype