The "Robert Rauschenberg: Among Friends" Exhibit, opened last May 21, 2017 at the Museum of Modern Art, is the first 21st-century retrospective of the artist. The show runs until September 17, 2017. The exhibit presents over 250 works from the six-decade artistic career of Milton Ernest "Robert" Rauschenberg (October 22, 1925 – May 12, 2008), an American painter and graphic artist whose early works anticipated the Pop art movement.
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Both a painter and a sculptor, his mediums range from painting and photography to a big vat of bubbling gray mud (“Mud Muse,” 1968-71). Rauschenberg also worked with performance, printmaking and papermaking. He lived and worked in New York City and, until his death, on Captiva Island, Florida.
Triathlon - Scenario (2005) is an inkjet transfer on polylaminate, 213.5 x 30.7cm. (84 x 119 1/8 in.) |
Collaboration was always
critical to Rauschenberg (hence the exhibition being named Among Friends) and
he often worked with artists, dancers, musicians, and writers, inventing new
interdisciplinary modes of artistic practice that helped set the course for art
of the present day. Some of these
collaborations work very well while others didn’t work at all but the good and
bad are all inside this exhibition.
Rauschenberg challenged the tradition of the heroic gestural painting of Abstract Expressionism, the ideology of geometric abstract painter Josef Albers (his teacher at BlackMountain College) who stressed a formal rigor in art work, with an egalitarian approach to materials, bringing the stuff of the everyday world into his art. Rauschenberg's approach was sometimes called "Neo-Dadaist," a label he shared with New York neighbor, the abstract expressionist painter Jasper Johns. During his nearly 60-year, Rauschenberg received numerous awards including the International Grand Prize in Painting at the 32nd Venice Biennale in 1964 and the National Medal of Arts in 1993.
Décor for Minutiae (1954-1976), a combine of oil, paper, fabric, newsprint, wood, metal, and plastic with mirror on braided wire on wood structure. |
A healthy portion of the
exhibition is dedicated to Rauschenberg’s well known Combines (1954–1964),
a term that describes works he created that combined both painting and a king
of assemblage-based sculpture. Perhaps one of the most venerated aspects of his
body of work, this group of artworks incorporates everyday objects as art
materials, blurring the distinctions between painting and sculpture. The
combines literally come alive and bleed out of the canvas and onto the
gallery’s floor. Some works come off as
more haphazard than others, but they are still very interesting and evocatively
beautiful to look at today.
Canyon (1959), looking
as if objects are coming alive and emerging from the canvas, reinforce the art
object as an organism that changes and evolves with the time that it passes
through. Minutiae, another of his combines, was commissioned by MerceCunningham, the revolutionary experimental choreographer, to be used as a set
piece to one of his productions in 1954.
Mirthday Man - Anagram (A Pun) (1997), an inkjet dye and pigment transfer on polylaminate, 314 x 459.1 cm. (123 5/8 x 180 3/4 in.) |
Pantomine (1961) features two
electric fans at the sides of a large canvas, blowing air at the paint. Mirthday [Anagram (A Pun] (1997) has, in the
center, the “self-portrait of inner man,” an X-ray of his body from three
decades earlier in Booster (1967). Surrounding his skeleton are photographs
from previous materials and work – zebras, umbrellas, tractors, numbers, advertisements
and a reproduction of Sandro Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus.
Pantomine (1961), a combine of oil, enamel, paper, fabric, wood, metal, and rubber wheel on canvas with electric fans, 213.4 x 152.4 x 50.8 cm. (84 x 60 x 20 in.) |
The iconic Retroactive 1 (1963),
on the other hand, used the silk-screen technique he and Andy Warhol borrowed
from the commercial art world at around the same time. Made of sourced mass
media images screen printed, via oil, onto canvas, it features John F. Kennedy alongside
an astronaut floating in space, the Sunkist orange logo and several more
abstract images.
Retroactive I (1964), a silkscreen that includes an image of John F. Kennedy, whom Rauschenberg greatly admired.. |
The exhibition was organized
by Leah Dickerman, The Marlene Hess Curator of Painting and Sculpture, The Museum of Modern Art, and Achim Borchardt-Hume, Director of Exhibitions at TateModern (London), with Emily Liebert and Jenny Harris, Curatorial Assistants,
Department of Painting and Sculpture, The Museum of Modern Art.
Rebus (1955), a combine of oil, synthetic polymer paint, pencil, crayon, pastel, cut-and-pasted print |
Charles Atlas, an acclaimed
artist and filmmaker who worked alongside Rauschenberg on some of the Merce
Cunningham Dance Company’s productions as stage manager, lighting designer, and
in-house filmmaker, collaborated with the curatorial and design teams on the
exhibition’s design to foreground Rauschenberg’s deep engagement with dance and
performance.
Robert Rauschenberg: Among
Friends: 4/F, The Alfred H. Barr, Jr. Painting
and Sculpture Galleries, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA),
11 West 53rd
St. (between Fifth and Sixth Ave.)
, New York City,
NY 10019, USA. Open 10:30 AM – 5:30 PM (8 PM on Fridays). Admission:
US$25/adult, children below 12 years old is free.
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