Appropriations and Collaborations: Rauschenberg

The Art Newspaper ran a post by Linda Yablonsky on May 23, 2022, covering a trio of new gallery shows featuring Robert Rauschenberg. My head always turns when Rauschenberg is mentioned–I can’t overstate the outsized influence his 1976 Gemini G.E.L. show at the Smithsonian’s Museum of American Art had on me, creatively and intellectually. I was nine years old when I saw it, but even then knew I was looking at something extraordinary. I didn’t understand why I was captivated, but I could feel something shifting in my mind.

While Yablonsky’s post concentrates on Rauschenberg’s enduring influence and relatively modest success (compared to his contemporaries), she also touches on themes that help me understand not only my own fascination with Rauschenberg, but also the unexpected through lines of my own interests. (Interests we are exploring here, in Slow Material.) Yablonsky touches on his trans-disciplinary practice, stating, “His appropriations of existing materials and collaborations with scientists and choreographers led to work in collage, performance, film, sound, set and costume design, and kinetic sculpture.”

The post continues: “‘I can’t think of an artist more prescient than Bob,’ says Kathy Halbreich, the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation’s director. As an example, she cites the current interest in appropriation, textiles, clay, performance, film, technology and the environment among artists of varying ages and sensibilities who pay a debt to Rauschenberg every time they go into their studios.”

Experiencing Rauschenberg’s work, especially at an impressionable age, offered me a visceral, pre-language awareness of metaphor, of mind at play, unbounded thinking, alternative narrative, that something happens outside the frame. I find myself in Halbreich’s cohort of artists of various sensibilities who owe Rauschenberg a debt.

GALLERIES

Robert Rauschenberg: Venetians and Early Egyptians, 1972-1974, Gladstone Gallery, New York, until 18 June

Robert Rauschenberg: Exceptional Works, 1971-1999, Mnuchin Gallery, New York, until 11 June

Robert Rauschenberg: Japanese Clayworks, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Salzburg, until 9 July

Installation view of Robert Rauschenberg: Exceptional Works, 1971-1999, at Mnuchin Gallery, New York.Courtesy of Mnuchin Gallery