S-ART-urday (Robert Rauschenberg)

Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008) was born in Port Arthur, Texas and served in the U.S. Marines during World War II.  For a brief period, he used the GI Bill to study art in Paris, but moved to North Carolina after less than a year. He moved to chaotic and exciting New York after North Carolina and became truly inspired.  Not really belonging to any one movement, he rejected the Abstract Expressionists and embraced popular culture and non-traditional materials.  In 1997, the Guggenheim Museum organized the most comprehensive exhibition of his works ever.  Robert Rauschenberg: A Retrospective featured nearly 300 works.  Rauschenberg died from heart failure on May 12, 2008.  

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Find out more about Erased de Kooning (1953), Rauschenberg's work created by erasing a work created by Willem de Kooning.  

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Bed, 1955, is one of Rauschenberg's first combines. This mixed media piece was on view during my trip to MoMA last week. It is oil and pencil on an his actual pillow, sheet, and quilt.

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This piece, Untitled (Asheville Citizen), was made from two canvases, matte black paint, and a piece of the August 3, 1951 Asheville Citizen newspaper. Asheville is near Black Mountain College, an experimental arts college with professors like Josef Albers, where Rauschenberg was a student during the late 1940s and early 1950s.   It is reminiscent of Mark Rothko. This was on view as well during my visit.

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Signs, 1970, is a silkscreen print that really sums up the 1960s through an assemblage of various clippings. Images include U.S. soldiers in Vietnam, Robert F. Kennedy, John F. Kennedy, Janis Joplin, Martin Luther King, and astronaut Buzz Aldrin.  According to Rauschenberg, Signs was "conceived to remind us of love, terror, violence of the last ten years. Danger lies in forgetting."

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Lotus Bed I from The Lotus Series, a 2008 series of twelve digital prints.  View more of his prints here.

View previous S-ART-urday posts: DIY Paint Chips, Tom Slaughter, Eric Carle, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Molly Mattin, Chuck Close