Robert Rauschenberg Artist Catalogue by sara.d.balsamo

Catherine Craft

Edward Winters

Elisa Schaar

John Yau

Julia Blaut

Sam Hunter

Sara Balsamo

First published in the United States of America in 1999 by RIZZOLI INTERNATIONAL PUBLICATIONS, INC.

300 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10010

Reproduction rights:

No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission in writing from Rizzoli International Publications, Inc.

ISBN 0-8478-2183-8

LC 99-70292

Color separations by Format Digital (Barcelona)

Printed by Filabo, S.A.

Sant Joan Despí (Barcelona)

Dep. Leg. B. 26.703-1999 (Printed in Spain)v

DEDICATION

To my parents, who have always showed their amazing support towards my passions and careers, and who have helped me get to where I am today.

INTRODUCTION

SELF TITLED WORKS 1 3 STONED MOON 2 SPREADS THE COMBINES 4 5

CHAPTER 1

Robert Rauschenberg’s art has always been one of thoughtful inclusion. Working in a wide range of subjects, styles, materials, and techniques, Rauschenberg has been called a forerunner of essentially every postwar movement since Abstract Expressionism. He remained, however, independent of any particular afﬁliation. At the time that he began making art in the late 1940s and early 1950s, his belief that “painting relates to both art and life” presented a direct challenge to the prevalent modernist aesthetic.

The celebrated Combines, begun in the mid-1950s, brought real-world images and objects into the realm of abstract painting and countered sanctioned divisions between painting and sculpture. These works established the artist’s ongoing dialogue between mediums, between the handmade and the readymade, and between the gestural brushstroke and the mechanically reproduced image. Rauschenberg’s lifelong commitment to collaboration—with performers, printmakers, engineers, writers, artists, and artisans from around the world—is a further manifestation of his expansive artistic philosophy.

Malaysion Flower Cave/ROCI Malaysia, 1990 Acrylic and collage on galvanized steel 306.8x367.7cm (120.75x144.75in) National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Copperhead Bite III/ROCI Chile, 1985 Acrylic with corrosives and polishes 246.1x130.2c, (96.875x51.25in) The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation

Daffodil (Shiner), 1986

Acrylic and objects on stainless steel 184.8x122.4x5.1cm (72.75x48.125x2in) Private Collection

Untitled (Gold Painting), 1953

Gold leaf on fabric and glue on Masonite, in wood and glass frame

31.2x32.1x2.9cm (12.25x12.625x1.125in)

Joint bequest of Eve Clendenin to The Museum of Modern Art and the Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, New York

Study for Currents #27, 1970

Cut and torn newspaper, solvent transfer 76.2x76.2cm (30x30in)

The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation

Dirt Painting (for John Cage), 1953

Dirt and mould in wooden box

39.4x40.6x6.4cm (15.5x16x2.5in)

The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation

CHAPTER 2

Combine is a term Rauschenberg invented to describe a series of works that combine aspects of painting and sculpture. Virtually eliminating all distinctions between these artistic categories, the Combines either hang on the wall or are freestanding. With the Combine series, Rauschenberg endowed new signiﬁcance to ordinary objects by placing them in the context of art.

Monogram, 1955-9

Oil,

By summer 1954, Rauschenberg had made the first, fully realized Combine, eliminating all distinctions between painting and sculpture. Expanding on Marcel Duchamp’s concept of the readymade, Rauschenberg imbued new significance to such ordinary objects as a patchwork quilt or an automobile tire by combining unrelated items and incorporating them into the context of art. When Rauschenberg first exhibited the Red Paintings and Combines at the Egan Gallery, New York, in December 1954, critics were baffled by the works, which challenged existing definitions of art.

106.7x160.7x163.8cm (42x63.25x64.5in)

Moderna

paper, fabric, printed paper, printed reproductions, metal, wood, rubber shoe heel and tennis ball on canvas, with oil on Angora goat and rubber tyre, on wooden platform mounted on four casters Museet, Stockholm

But I think collage itself, and the activity of making collage, is the most direct way that you can relate diverse elements rather than their going through the transition of a translation.

That is what I like about

using real objects,

Minutiae, 1954

Oil, paper, fabric, newspaper, wood, metal and plastic with mirror on braided wire on wooden structure

214.6x205.7x77.5cm (84.5x81x30.5in) Private Collection

Canyon, 1959

Oil, pencil, paper, fabric, metal, cardboard box, printed paper, printed reproductions, photograph, wood, paint tube and mirror on canvas, with oil on bald eagle, string and pillow

207.6x177.8x61cm (81.75x70x24in)

Sonnabend Collection, New York

Bed, 1955

Oil and penci on pillow, quilt and sheet mounted on wood

191.1x80x20.3cm (75.25x31.25x8in)

The Museum of Modern Art, New York

Allegory, 1959-60

Oil, paper, fabric, printer paper, wood and umbrella on canvas and metal, sand and glue on mirrored panel

182.8x304.8x29.8cm (72x120x11.75in)

Museu Ludwig, Cologne

Less than a decade later, however, Rauschenberg’s reputation as the leading artist of his generation was established following his ﬁrst solo exhibition held in 1963 at the Jewish Museum, New York, and his award the following year of the International Grand Prize in Painting at the Venice Biennale. Of the works by Rauschenberg shown at the U.S. Pavilion were many of his now-celebrated Combines, including Bed (1955), as well as several paintings from a series the artist began in fall 1962, in which he used commercially produced silkscreens based on media sources and his own photographs.

Charlene, 1954

Oil, charcoal, paper, fabric, newspaper, wood, plastic, mirror and metal on four Homasote panels, mounted on wood, with electric light 226.1x284.5x8.9cm (89x112x3.5in)

Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam

Rauschenberg’s use of a commercial means of reproduction and his focus on media subjects in this series led art critics to identify him with the Pop art movement that had recently emerged on the New York art scene in 1962. In comparison with the often coolly executed paintings of the Pop artists, however, Rauschenberg’s works are emphatically gestural and handmade. The silkscreen paintings have an expressive quality that results from their hand-painted areas, the collage-like overlays of photographic images, and the intentional slippage and irregularities, which the artist allowed to remain uncorrected during the screening process.

Odalisk, 1955-8

Oil, watercolour, pencil, crayyon, paper, fabric, photographs, printed reproductions, miniature blueprint, newspaper, metal, glass, dried grass and steel wool with pillow, wooden structure mounted on four casters

210.8x64.1x63.8cm (83x25.25x25.125in)

Museum Ludwig, Cologne

Black Market, 1961

Oil, watercolour, pencil, paper, fabric, newspaper, printed paper, printed reproductions, wood, metal, tin and four metal clipboards on canvas with rope, rubber stamp, ink pad, and various objects in a wooden case randomely given and taken by viewers

127x151.1x10.2cm (50x60x4in)

Museum Ludwig, Cologne

Untitled, 1954

Oil, pencil, crayon, paper, canvas, fabric, newspaper, photographs, wood, glass, mirror, tin, cork and found painting with pair of painted leather shoes, dried grass and Dominique hen on wooden structure mounted on ﬁve casters

219.7x94x66.7cm (86.5x38x26.25in)

The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, The Pana Collection

Rauschenberg’s use of a commercial means of reproduction and his focus on media subjects in this series led art critics to identify him with the Pop art movement that had recently emerged on the New York art scene in 1962. In comparison with the often coolly executed paintings of the Pop artists, however, Rauschenberg’s works are emphatically gestural and handmade. The silkscreen paintings have an expressive quality that results from their handpainted areas, the collage-like overlays of photographic images, and the intentional slippage and irregularities, which the artist allowed to remain uncorrected during the screening process.

CHAPTER 3

Rauschenberg made his ﬁrst lithographs in 1962 and used various techniques to transfer images, illustrated here in one of his best known prints, “Booster.” Related to dance images from the 1950s in which the artist captured the human form on lightsensitive paper, the central image of the skeleton derives from X-rays of himself. It was printed from two lithographic stones and includes a superimposed astronomer’s chart that refers to the movement of heavenly bodies for 1967 (the year of this print). Rauschenberg’s use of images from advertising and popular culture in his work presciently signaled a paradigmatic shift in the use of such images in the second half of the twentieth century. At the time Rauschenberg made this print, it was noteworthy in part for its scale, and it dates from his involvement with Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.), which brought together artists and engineers to collaborate on performances that incorporated new technology.

Booster, 1967

Colour lithograph and silkscreen on paper 72x35.5in

From an edition of thirty eight, published by Gemini G.E.I., Los Angeles

Autobiography, 1968

Colour offset lithograph on sheets of paper, overall 198.75x48.75in

From an edition of two thousand, published by Broadside Art, Inc. New York

Rauschenberg’s monumental print Autobiography is a summation work that brings together the life and work of the then forty-three-year-old artist. Printed on three sheets of paper in an edition of 2,000, under the sponsorship of Marion Javits, wife of the U.S. Senator Jacob Javits, Autobiography is the ﬁrst ﬁne art print made on a billboard press. In each section, the artist’s personal history is woven together through a montage of indexical images—direct traces of the artist—such as photographs and X-rays, combined with references to places of personal importance and “found” imagery, including an umbrella and wheel, which are among Rauschenberg’s recurrent motifs. Upon its completion in January 1968, the sixteen-and-a-half-foottall, color, offset lithograph was immediately exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

One of Robert Rauschenberg’s many celebrated achievements is Stoned Moon (1969-70), a series of 34 lithographs printed at Gemini G.E.L. in Los Angeles.

Rauschenberg was one of a number artists invited by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to attend the launch of Apollo 11, the spaceﬂight that landed two Americans on the moon on July 20, 1969, and he responded with an unparalleled burst of energy. Even now, a half-century after this historic event, his response feels fresh, brimming with brilliant visual and material connections and associations, beginning with the connection he drew between the lithography stone and the moon.

chapter 4

Sky Garden, 1969 lithograph and screenprint 89.25x42in

Robert Rauschenberg Foundation / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

The real surprise of this show is a group of works that were meant for Stoned Moon Book, an artist’s book that, sadly, was never published. The group includes four solvent-transfer drawings, four photo-collages for the book’s front and back covers and endpapers, and 11 layout pages.

It is in the 11 layout pages that you will discover a side of Rauschenberg that is little known: his writing. While I think of Robert Smithson as an artist and a writer, I never before thought of Rauschenberg in this way. However, based solely on the writing in the layout pages, I will from now on. Really, that’s how inventive and good it is.

The book is essentially is a paean to Apollo 11 and to GEMINI G.E.L., as well as a record of Rauschenberg’s ecological concerns. It is brimming with hope and optimism – feelings that seem impossible to grasp in our current state of racial proﬁling, tribal skirmishes, and percolating hatred.

Pages from Stoned Moon Book, 1970 Typewritten paper, photographs, colored pencil, and graphite on illustration board 9.375x16in Robert Rauschenberg Foundation / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

“Spread” is a term used to describe a wide expanse of land, as well as a fabric covering; it also refers to the large scale of these particular artworks. Paint and solvent transfer images were applied directly to plywood and often to fabric collage. Rauschenberg also frequently incorporated found objects, mirrored Plexiglas, and electric lights.

used to describe a WIDE EXPANSE of as well as a FABRIC

of LAND,

FABRIC COVERING

I have a PECULIAR kind of FOCUS

Robert Rauschenberg liked to keep the television on. You’d see it in a corner of his studio, or a nearby room; no sound, no subtitles, just an endless parade of images on the screen. In its silence, the ﬂow had little discernible content or logic, but that never bothered him. ‘I have a peculiar kind of focus,’ he said in 1958. ‘I tend to see everything in sight.’

The title of the series, ‘Spreads’, suggests various kinds of expansion. In 1977, Rauschenberg gave as deﬁnitions both large tracts of farmland and the act of stretching a thing out wide. (He added, less plausibly, ‘also the stuff you put on toast’.) Given the presence of clippings from newspapers and magazines, a more technical sense might be that of a print ‘spread’: two facing pages to be ﬂattened out and read in tandem, their local visual rhythms simultaneously forming parts of a larger design.

Tattoo, 1980 Solvent transfer, acrylic, paper, and fabric with wind socks and metal ﬁxtures on wood 73.75x96.625x19in

I tend to see EVERYTHING in SIGHT

Solvent transfer, pencil, and ink on fabric and cardboard, with wood doors, fabric, metal, rope, pillow, mounted on foam core and redwood supports 144x192x5.5in

Rodeo Palace, 1975-76

PECULIAR

ARTICLES

Edward Winters, Robert Rauschenberg: Spreads 1975-1983, www.trebuchet-magazine.com

Elisa Schaar, Robert Rauschenberg: Spreads 1975-83, www.artbook.com

John Yau, Robert Rauschenberg and the Men on the Moon, www.hyperallergic.com

Julia Blaut, Overview: Life and Art, www.rauschenbergfoundation.org

Robert Rauschenberg: Sky Garden (Stoned Moon), www.sfmoma.org

BOOKS

Catherine Craft, Robert Rauschenberg

Sam Hunter, Robert Rauschenberg

p13 Allegory, 1959-60

oil, paper, fabric, printer paper, wood and umbrella on canvas and metal, sand and glue on mirrored panel

72x120x11.75in

Museu Ludwig, Cologne

p21 Autobiography, 1968

Colour offset lithograph on sheets of paper, overall

198.75x48.75in

From an edition of two thousand, published by Broadside Art, Inc. New York

p13 Bed, 1955

Oil and penci on pillow, quilt and sheet mounted on wood

75.25x31.25x8in

The Museum of Modern Art, New York

p15 Black Market, 1961

50x60x4in

Museum Ludwig, Cologne

p20 Booster, 1967

Colour lithograph and silkscreen on paper

72x35.5in

From an edition of thirty eight, published by Gemini G.E.I., Los Angeles

p12 Canyon, 1959

Oil, pencil, paper, fabric, metal, cardboard box, printed paper, printed reproductions, photograph, wood, paint tube and mirror on canvas, with oil on bald eagle, string and pillow

81.75x70x24in

Sonnabend Collection, New York

p14 Charlene, 1954

Oil, charcoal, paper, fabric, newspaper, wood, plastic, mirror and metal on four Homasote panels, mounted on wood, with electric light

89x112x3.5in

Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam

p8 Copperhead Bite III/ ROCI Chile, 1985

Acrylic with corrosives and polishes

96.875x51.25in

The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation

p8 Daffodil (Shiner), 1986

Acrylic and objects on stainless steel

72.75x48.125x2in

Private Collection

p9 Dirt Painting (for John Cage), 1953

Dirt and mould in wooden box

15.5x16x2.5in

The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation

p34 Echo Echo IV, 1992-93

Acrylic and silkscreened acrylic on aluminum and Lexan, with sonar-activated motor, bicycle wheel and steel base

88.5x73.5x28.5in

p9 Untitled (Gold Painting), 1953

Gold leaf on fabric and glue on Masonite, in wood and glass frame

12.25x12.625x1.125in

Joint bequest of Eve Clendenin to The Museum of Modern Art and the Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, New York

p7 12 Malaysion Flower Cave/ROCI

Malaysia, 1990

Acrylic and collage on galvanized steel

120.75x144.75in

National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

p10 Monogram, 1955-9

Oil, paper, fabric, printed paper, printed reproductions, metal, wood, rubber shoe heel and tennis ball on canvas, with oil on Angora goat and rubber tyre, on wooden platform mounted on four casters 42x63.25x64.5in

Moderna Museet, Stockholm

p12 Minutiae, 1954

Oil, paper, fabric, newspaper, wood, metal and plastic with mirror on braided wire on wooden structure

84.5x81x30.5in

Private Collection

p14 Odalisk, 1955-8

Museum Ludwig, Cologne

p25 Pages from Stoned Moon Book, 1970

Typewritten paper, photographs, colored pencil, and graphite on illustration board

9.375x16in

Robert Rauschenberg Foundation

/ Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

p24 Retroactive I, 1964

Oil and silkscreened ink on canvase 84x60in

p28 Rodeo Palace, 1975-76

Solvent transfer, pencil, and ink on fabric and cardboard, with wood doors, fabric, metal, rope, pillow, mounted on foam core and redwood supports 144x192x5.5in

p24 Signs, 1970

Silkscreened print (edition of 250, Castelli Graphics)

43x43in

p23 Sky Garden, 1969

Lithograph and screenprint

89.25x42in

Robert Rauschenberg Foundation

/ Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

p9 Study for Currents #27, 1970

Cut and torn newspaper, solvent transfer

30x30in

The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation

p28 Tattoo, 1980

Solvent transfer, acrylic, paper, and fabric with wind socks and metal ﬁxtures on wood

73.75x96.625x19in

p15 Untitled, 1954

86.5x38x26.25in

The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, The Pana Collection

Echo Echo IV, 1992-93 Acrylic and silkscreened acrylic on aluminum and Lexan, with sonar-activated motor, bicycle wheel and steel base 88.5x73.5x28.5in