Robert Rauschenberg

American sculptor

• Born: October 22, 1925
• Birthplace: Port Arthur, Texas
• Died: May 12, 2008
• Place of death: Captiva Island, Florida

Making the transition from abstract expressionism to pop art in the 1950’s, Rauschenberg created three-dimensional sculptures he called combines, which melded found objects and ordinary materials with canvas and paint. By its very presence, his artwork questions what constitutes art and what media could be used to make art.

Early Life

Robert Rauschenberg (ROW-shehn-burg) was born in Port Arthur, Texas. As a boy he aspired to become a minister but later changed his choice in vocations and focused on becoming a pharmacist. In the early 1940’s he enrolled at the University of Texas at Austin, where he began studying pharmacology.

Rauschenberg was drafted and then served in the U.S. Navy during World War II. During his service, he worked as a neuropsychiatric technician at the Navy Corps Hospital in San Diego, California. It was also during this time that he realized he had a great talent for drawing, and so he set out to capture everyday objects and people on paper. When his military service ended in 1947, he enrolled in college under the G.I. Bill at Kansas City Art Institute and began his lifelong devotion to the arts.

In 1948, Rauschenberg traveled to Paris, where he enrolled at the Académie Julian. Disenchanted with the European art scene, he returned to the United States that same year and enrolled in the prestigious Black Mountain College in North Carolina. While attending Black Mountain, he studied with renowned Bauhaus figure Josef Albers and architectR. Buckminster Fuller, and also came in contact with influential artists, including dancer Merce Cunningham and musician John Cage. Rauschenberg would credit Albers as pivotal to his artistic development.

Life’s Work

Although Black Mountain offered much artistic stimulation, Rauschenberg soon tired of North Carolina and ventured north to New York, where he began taking classes at the Art Student League (1949-1951) and was soon offered a solo show at the Beth Parsons Gallery. During his studies at the Art Student League, Rauschenberg met fellow artist Cy Twombly, and the two traveled throughout Europe and North Africa in 1953.

Once back in New York, Rauschenberg became inspired by city life and evolved his previously minimalist style (all white and all black paintings) to thoroughly realize what he could accomplish through painting. By introducing objects and materials not traditionally associated with fine art, such as house or commercial paint and rolling tires slopped with paint over canvas to create new textures, Rauschenberg elevated the ordinary to the extraordinary while embracing popular culture. In so doing, he forced the serious and elite abstract expressionists and other art connoisseurs to question what constituted fine art and to reexamine what were acceptable materials and subject matter.

Rauschenberg’s continuous experimentation with various materials and his combinations of paint types with found objects soon led to his signature contribution to the art world, something he coined “combines.” Combines are three-dimensional collages consisting of various materials including canvas, found or discarded objects, paint, and anything else the artist can incorporate. Rauschenberg debuted his combines including Bed , which featured a quilt and pillow splattered with paint and starch thrown over an upright bed at Happenings in New York, in which local artists would experiment with sight and sound through performance pieces. By 1958, Rauschenberg had his first solo exhibition of his combines at the Leo Castelli Gallery in New York, and his permanent place in art history was established.

Rauschenberg’s most famous combine is arguably Monogram , which features a stuffed angora goat inside a rubber car tire, surrounded by various items including a tennis ball, the heel of a shoe, a police barrier, and paint. Rauschenberg’s combines shocked, amused, and expanded the art world from traditional two- and three-dimensional pieces housed in museums to eclectic works comprising objects found in the streets or otherwise discarded.

As the 1960’s emerged, and the pop art movement took hold of New York City, Rauschenberg returned to working in the two-dimensional realm. Inspired by longtime personal and professional friend Jasper Johns , Rauschenberg created silkscreen prints out of collages comprising photographs from magazines and current events from periodicals. He would take these prints and transfer popular images and icons onto canvases and then layer and paint on top of the images a process previously exclusive to the commercial realm. Rauschenberg understood that the replication of an image, regardless of how dear, iconic, or horrific in its original singular form, changed the way the viewer approached and responded to it, either increasing or decreasing its importance but always altering the underlying relationship between image and viewer. Working with images in this way led to Rauschenberg and Johns being considered forerunners of the pop art movement in the United States. Their work was frequently referred to as neo-Dada.

Rauschenberg quickly applied his silkscreen and solvent-transfer techniques to other media, including aluminum, Plexiglas, and clothing. He worked closely with engineers to transform these materials into designs with a nature and scale that would incorporate the viewer into the work. Throughout the remainder of the 1960’s, Rauschenberg became increasingly involved in collaborative projects that included two-dimensional art, dance and choreography, set design, and the fusion of art and technology.

Rauschenberg’s work did not go unnoticed. In addition to countless exhibitions and retrospectives, Rauschenberg became the first American artist to win the prestigious Venice Biennale in 1964. In 1997, the Guggenheim Museum, New York, exhibited over four hundred works by the artist in a huge Rauschenberg retrospective. The exhibition toured the United States and Europe, inspiring new artists and art lovers across the world.

Rauschenberg settled in a huge studio complex he built on Captiva Island off Florida’s Gulf Coast. He died on the island on May 12, 2008, at the age of eighty-two, after suffering from heart failure.

Significance

Rauschenberg was quoted as saying that “Painting relates to both art and life. I try to act in the gap between the two.” His life’s work and passion is a testament to this sentiment. Also, he bridged the gap between abstract expressionism and pop art, ushering in a new movement and new ideas. He also gave hope and inspiration to an entire generation of fresh artists who had grown tired and restricted by traditional art media. Rauschenberg questioned what constituted art from philosophical and literal perspectives, and he encouraged others to do the same. His ability to recognize found and nontraditional objects as potential artistic media, and his gift of combining unlikely found and ordinary objects, became his refreshing trademark, and his greatest contribution to the art world.

In addition to expanding the definition of art and its materials through his combines, Rauschenberg made insightful commentaries on society by incorporating cultural imagery from periodicals into silk-screened and solvent-transferred collages Rauschenberg commented on society by exposing it through the very images it used to define itself.

Committed to artistic collaborations, Rauschenberg established foundations across the world to ensure his artistic ideals would be preserved and expanded upon. In 1967 he created Experiments in Art and Technology (EAT) with scientist and engineer Billy Klüver (1927-2004). The foundation was dedicated to fusing technology and fine arts through encouraging collaborations among artists and engineers. In the late 1980’s, Rauschenberg established the Rauschenberg Overseas Cultural Exchange, in which he created and left one piece of art in various countries. He extended the invitation to other artists as well. He added several pieces throughout the project’s life (1985-1991).

Bibliography

Kotz, Mary Lynn. Rauschenberg: Art and Life. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2004. A comprehensive biography of the artist that focuses on the inspiration behind his work and examines his personal life as well.

Madoff, Steven H. Pop Art: A Critical History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997. An interesting and enlightening collection of articles and interviews that were printed during the pop art phenomena.

Mattison, Robert Saltonstall, and Robert Rauschenberg. Robert Rauschenberg: Breaking Boundaries. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2003. Mattison explores the motivations, personal experiences, and curiosities behind Rauschenberg’s combines, foundations, and performance pieces.

Rauschenberg, Robert. Robert Rauschenberg: Combines. London: Steidl, 2006. Featuring 174 works, this catalog accompanies an exhibition of Rauschenberg’s art that toured internationally from 2005 through 2007.

Rauschenberg, Robert, Susan Davidson, et al. Robert Rauschenberg: A Retrospective. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1997. This retrospective offers an in-depth look into Rauschenberg’s artwork and performance pieces. Delves into Rauschenberg’s numerous collaborations with other artists.

Rauschenberg, Robert, and Sam Hunter. Robert Rauschenberg: Works, Writing, Interviews. Barcelona, Spain: Poligrafa, 2007. This is a wonderful collection of writings by the artist and of interviews with other artists about Rauschenberg’s work.

Tompkins, Calvin. Off the Wall: A Portrait of Robert Rauschenberg. London: Picador, 2005. Focusing on the 1950’s and 1960’s, Tompkins celebrates the breakthrough Rauschenberg made by taking art off the walls and placing it in the center of the art world for examination.