Rauschenberg, Robert

Robert Rauschenberg (1925- )

Process, object, environment and artist intertwine in Robert Rauschenberg's work. He embodies most of the ideas of this century's modern art, yet his powerful, idiosyncratic works are like those of no other artist.

Born Milton Rauschenberg in Texas in 1925, he received a sound art education. He attended Kansas City Art Institute in 1947, and then the renowned Academie Julien in Paris in 1948.

He returned to the United States to attend Black Mountain College in North Carolina in 1949. There he studied under abstract painter Josef Albers, one of the emigres who, seeking refuge in the United States from Europe's devastation, had galvanized American art. There, too, he formed professional relationships with avant-garde composer John Cage and choreographer Merce Cunningham.

Rauschenberg continued on to New York City, where he studied at the Art Students League until 1952. From then until 1953, he traveled in Northern Africa and Italy.

His first works included collage, and he was involved in the production of perhaps the first impromptu theatrical "happening," a performance of John Cage's Theater Piece #1 (1952). His "combine paintings" of the 1950s combined, at first, paint and objects from his own past, but later included more "found" materials like photographs that had no personal connection with the artist. He turned to planning and costuming stage performances, particula4y dance, in the 1960s, and in the 1970s he produced constructions of fragile and ephemeral materials.

From the beginning, Rauschenberg's work contained nontraditional materials, was exhibited in a nontraditional setting, and refused categorization. Although he rejected the serious, self-important, personal emotionality of the abstract expressionist painters, his brushwork is expressive and emotive. His incorporation of mundane objects-such as bed linens, license plates, or tires-into his assemblages heavily influenced the growth of pop art and neo-dadaism in the 1960s, but the effect is neither banal and cynical like pop, nor deliberately chaotic and negative like dada.

Unlike his contemporaries Larry Rivers and Jasper Johns, Rauschenberg's restless inventiveness makes his works difficult to categorize. He has always been willing to explore new possibilities, including combining paintings with music or performance, and using blue-prints, electronics, silkscreen and-most recently-ephemeral materials such as cardboard in his paintings.

Rauschenberg 's work is contradictory. He sees the artist as a participant or reporter rather than a creator, but the stamp of his style and personality is evident in each of his paintings. Though his is an art of the concept, the idea, there is evident enjoyment in his engagement with the medium of expression and the material world. Whatever the judgment of later generations, Robert Rauschenberg is regarded as a tremendously influential force in twentieth-century art.

Selected Exhibitions: Museums and Galleries

2007   "Rauschenberg. Express," Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid 2007   "Nothing and everything," Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, CA 2007   "Robert Rauschenberg: Cardboards and Related Pieces," The Menil Collection, Houston, TX 2007   "Robert Rauschenberg," Moderna Museet, Stockholm 2006   "Robert Rauschenberg," Centre Pompidou - Musée National d´Art Moderne, Paris 2006   "Robert Rauschenberg," Gallery Hyundai, Seoul 2006   "Robert Rauschenberg," MOCA THE GEFFEN CONTEMPORARY, Los Angeles, CA; MOCA Grand Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 2006   "Robert Rauschenberg: Spread and Scale," Galerie Jamileh Weber, Zurich 2006   "Art from Life: Prints by Robert Rauschenberg," Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, Stanford, CA 2006   "Focus Room. Robert Rauschenberg," Tate Liverpool, Liverpool, England 2006   "Robert Rauschenberg: Scenarios and Short Stories," Jepson Center for the Arts, Savannah, GA 2006   "Rauschenberg: Prints," Jim Kempner Fine Art, New York, NY 2005   "Rauschenberg - Rosenquist - Lichtenstein," Bernard Jacobson Gallery, London, England 2005   "Robert Rauschenberg," Galerie Terminus, Munich 2005   "Dialogues: Duchamp, Cornell, Johns, Rauschenberg," Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX 2005   "Robert Rauschenberg: on and off the wall," MUSÉE D'ART MODERNE ET D'ART CONTEMPORAIN-NICE, Nice 2005   "Combines" organized by The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles in association with The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 2004   "Robert Rauschenberg: Current Scenarios," Wadsworth Museum of Art, Hartford 2004   "Mostly Photography - Art since 1980 from the Collection," Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, MA 2004   "What´s modern?" Gagosian Gallery, New York, NY 2004   "Made in USA popart," Galerie Laurent Strouk, Paris 2004   "Robert Rauschenberg," Bernard Jacobson Gallery, London, England 2004   "15 Minutes of Fame: 20 Years of Pop Prints," National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, VIC 2004   "Robert Rauschenberg," John Berggruen Gallery, San Francisco, CA 2003   "Popular, Pop & Post-Pop: Color Screenprints 1930s to Now," Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA 2003   "Robert Rauschenberg - Prints & Unique Work," Jim Kempner Fine Art, New York, NY 2002   "X-LARGE - Borofsky, Burden, Johns, Kelly, Lichtenstein, Rauschenberg, Serra, Ste," Brooke Alexander Editions, New York, NY 2002   "An American Legacy, A Gift to New York," Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY 2002   "Robert Rauschenberg - Les dix dernières années," Musée Maillol - Fondation Dina Vierny, Paris 2002   "Robert Rauschenberg - Short Stories," Waddington Galleries, London (England) 2002   "Robert Rauschenberg: Recent Work," The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 2001   "Modernism & Abstraction: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum," Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, MA 2001   "ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG - RUMINATIONS," völcker & freunde gallery, Berlin 2001   "Robert Rauschenberg: Marrakech," La Caja Negra, Madrid 2001   "Robert Rauschenberg: Short Stories," Galerie Jamileh Weber, Zurich 2000   "Robert Rauschenberg - Darryl Pottorf," Galerie Tanit, Munich 2000   "Robert Rauschenberg - Synapsis Shuffle," Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY 2000   "Highlights of Late 20th-Century Art from the Sydney and Frances Lewis Collection," Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA 1999   "Robert Rauschenberg - Malerei," Galleri Faurschou, Copenhagen 1999   "Robert Rauschenberg - Obra gráfica (1967-1979)," Museo de Arte Abstracto Español, Cuenca 1999   "Robert Rauschenberg - The 1/4 Mile or 2 Furlong Piece," Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams, MA 1999   "Robert Rauschenberg - Photographs," Galleria Rubin, Milano 1998   "Robert Rauschenberg. Obra gráfica 1967-1979," Museu d'Art Espanyol Contemporani (Fundación Juan March), Palma de Mallorca 1998   "Robert Rauschenberg - Retrospectiva," Museo Guggenheim de Arte Moderno y Contemporáneo, Bilbao 1998   "Robert Rauschenberg - Anagrams (A Pun)," Galerie Jamileh Weber, Zurich 1997   Retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum, New York in collaboration with the Menil Collection, Houston, Texas, exhibition travels to the Museum Ludwig, Cologne and the Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao 1990   Whitney Museum of American Art, New York 1987   The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 1963   First retrospective organized by the Jewish Museum, New York 1951   First solo exhibition at the Betty Parsons gallery, New York ORIGINAL ART BY ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG AT PICASSOMIO FAMOUS ARTISTS AT PICASSOMIO POP ART AT PICASSOMIO

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