The "Robert Rauschenberg: Among Friends" Exhibit (Washington D.C., U.S.A.)

 

Oracle (1962-65) is a five-part metal assemblage with five concealed radios: ventilation duct; automobile door on typewriter table, with crushed metal; ventilation duct in washtub and water, with wire basket; constructed staircase control unit housing batteries and electronic components; and wood window frame with ventilation duct, all on wheels

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.

 

Gift for Apollo (1959), a combine of oil, pant fragments, necktie, wood, fabric, newsprint, printed paper, and printed reproductions on wood with metal bucket, metal chain, door knob, L brackets, metal washer, nail, and rubber wheels with metal spokes, 24.5 x 107.3 x 50.8 cm. (49 x 42 1/4 x 20 in.), depth variable

 

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), a combine of oil, pencil, paper, metal, photograph, fabric, wood, canvas, buttons, mirror, taxidermied eagle, cardboard, pillow, paint tube and other materials, 207.6 x 177.8 x 61 cm. (81 3/4 x 70 x 24").

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.

 

Short Circuit (1955), a combine of oil, fabric and paper
on wood supports and cabinet with two hinged doors
containing a painting by Susan Weil anda reproduction
of a Jasper Johns Flag painting by Elaine Sturtevant,
103.5 x 95.3 x 10.8 cm. (40 3/4 x 37 1/2 x 4 1/4 in.)

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.