These Fragments I Have Shored Against My Ruins or Talking Rubbish
Finally went to Rauschenberg's "Combines" at the Metropolitan Museum.
Way cool. To be able to see the works "live" and not on the pages of a book.
For the uninitiated, the "Combines" incorporate both 3 dimensional as well as 2 dimensional collage and are part sculpture, part painting, part construction, a large dollop of audacity, 35% irony and a more than a pinch of cheek. They 'combine' materials both found and incidental, as well as 'created' specifically for the piece. Many of the pieces feature silk-screens, photography, drawing, expressionist style painting, cunning and intelligence and newspaper clippings and wit and old bed spreads and light bulbs, stuffed chickens and cardboard and ladders, leaning, glued, painted and laughed over and nailed together and mulled, .. the debris and detritus of modern life sampled and wrought through the conduit that is Rauschenberg, sublimely composed in an infinitely inclusive space.
The visual/sculptural predecessor of the modern day DJ/sampler, Channel Surfer, Chat-room Chatter.
Of course there will be those who will say it's just rubbish.
Well that'll be a waste.
Just because Rauschenberg has his collected by the Met rather than the Sanitation department is no reason to trash one of the greatest and surely the most representative visual artist of the late 20th century.
Monogram, 1955–59
Freestanding combine: oil, paper, fabric, printed paper, printed reproductions, metal, wood, rubber shoe heel, and tennis ball on canvas, with oil on Angora goat and rubber tire, on wood platform mounted on four casters; 42 x 63 1/4 x 64 1/2 in.
Moderna Museet, Stockholm
Art © Robert Rauschenberg/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY
Untitled, ca. 1954
Freestanding combine: oil, pencil, crayon, paper, canvas, fabric, newspaper, photographs, wood, glass, mirror, tin, cork and found painting with pair of painted leather shoes, dried grass, and Dominique hen mounted on wood structure on five casters; 86 1/2 x 37 x 26 1/4 in.
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, The Panza Collection
Art © Robert Rauschenberg/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY
Just Rubbish, 2005
Freestanding garbage: paper, wrapper, melted ice-cream, styrofoam plate (with Hoisin sauce), gunk, penny, fabric, chewing-gum (chewed), plastic bags, bacteria, mineral water bottle (half-empty), beer, puke, oil, newspaper, more plastic bags, coca cola cup, take-out, dirt, receipt, receptacle, unidentified stuff, goo, corrugated cardboard, lamp-post, tv, politics, on gum-spattered sidewalk; 102 1/4 x 56 x 46 1/2 in.
Corner of Canal Street and Broadway, New York, Collection of the Sanitation Department of New York
Art © Alfie Lee, New York, NY
Way cool. To be able to see the works "live" and not on the pages of a book.
For the uninitiated, the "Combines" incorporate both 3 dimensional as well as 2 dimensional collage and are part sculpture, part painting, part construction, a large dollop of audacity, 35% irony and a more than a pinch of cheek. They 'combine' materials both found and incidental, as well as 'created' specifically for the piece. Many of the pieces feature silk-screens, photography, drawing, expressionist style painting, cunning and intelligence and newspaper clippings and wit and old bed spreads and light bulbs, stuffed chickens and cardboard and ladders, leaning, glued, painted and laughed over and nailed together and mulled, .. the debris and detritus of modern life sampled and wrought through the conduit that is Rauschenberg, sublimely composed in an infinitely inclusive space.
The visual/sculptural predecessor of the modern day DJ/sampler, Channel Surfer, Chat-room Chatter.
Of course there will be those who will say it's just rubbish.
Well that'll be a waste.
Just because Rauschenberg has his collected by the Met rather than the Sanitation department is no reason to trash one of the greatest and surely the most representative visual artist of the late 20th century.
Monogram, 1955–59Freestanding combine: oil, paper, fabric, printed paper, printed reproductions, metal, wood, rubber shoe heel, and tennis ball on canvas, with oil on Angora goat and rubber tire, on wood platform mounted on four casters; 42 x 63 1/4 x 64 1/2 in.
Moderna Museet, Stockholm
Art © Robert Rauschenberg/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY
Untitled, ca. 1954Freestanding combine: oil, pencil, crayon, paper, canvas, fabric, newspaper, photographs, wood, glass, mirror, tin, cork and found painting with pair of painted leather shoes, dried grass, and Dominique hen mounted on wood structure on five casters; 86 1/2 x 37 x 26 1/4 in.
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, The Panza Collection
Art © Robert Rauschenberg/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY
Just Rubbish, 2005Freestanding garbage: paper, wrapper, melted ice-cream, styrofoam plate (with Hoisin sauce), gunk, penny, fabric, chewing-gum (chewed), plastic bags, bacteria, mineral water bottle (half-empty), beer, puke, oil, newspaper, more plastic bags, coca cola cup, take-out, dirt, receipt, receptacle, unidentified stuff, goo, corrugated cardboard, lamp-post, tv, politics, on gum-spattered sidewalk; 102 1/4 x 56 x 46 1/2 in.
Corner of Canal Street and Broadway, New York, Collection of the Sanitation Department of New York
Art © Alfie Lee, New York, NY
posted by ginnie & alfie @ 3/30/2006 03:06:00 PM
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