Robert Rauschenberg

neo-dada
Born: Texas, 1925
Died: Florida, 2008
Rauschenberg's influences: Society and Art


Post-war affluence


American art of that era
 Rauschenberg's influences: Artists


New York painters


The Dadaists


Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968)
Duchamp: Bicycle Wheel (1913)
 Rauschenberg's influences: Cornell


Joseph Cornell (1903-1972)

Cassiopeia 1 (1960)
 Rauschenberg's influences: Schwitters


Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948)

Something or other (1922)

 Rauschenberg: Neo Dada Movement


Neo Dada


Jasper Johns


The bridge into Pop Art
 Jasper Johns

The Critic Smiles (1969)

Numbers in color (1958-59)

 Johns: Three flags (1968)

Jasper Johns once said “No American artist, invented

more than Rauschenberg”
All white and Black Paintings
 Works similar to Rauschenberg


Lucio Fontana (1899-1968)

•Fontana can be considered one of

the most important artists in the history
of Italian art.

Pananti (1960)
 Works similar to Rauschenberg

Yves Klein (1928-1962)

Angel Blue (1961)

Robert Rauschenberg on "Erased de Kooning"

This piece was one of Rauschenberg's most controversial.

It raised many fundamental questions about the nature of art.

The viewer was challenged to consider whether erasing another artist's

work could be a creative act, as well as whether the work was only "art"
because Rauschenberg was responsible.
 Rauschenberg's work: Combines


This is when non-traditional materials and objects are
employed in innovative combinations.

Monogram (1955-59)
Rauschenberg: Bed (1955)
Rauschenberg: First landing jump (1961)
 Rauschenberg's work: Silk screens

Retroactive 1 (1964) Creek (1964)

 Rauschenberg's Legacy

Rauschenberg died of heart failure in 2008,

aged 82. How should he be remembered?


Obscuring boundaries

Pushing art

Inspiration
Warhol:

Coca-cola bottles (1962)

Marilyn Monroe (1967)
Roy Lichtenstein, who's use of comic strips in art
followed Rauschenberg's by 10 years,
acknowledged the latter's influence on him, and
on pop art in general.

“The coke bottles he put into his art, the

happenings and environments, all the things in
which he was involved, brought up a raw, strictly
American material .. merchandise as
merchandise. Art became American rather than
European. The Sixties, Seventies and Eighties
were all influenced by that work”.