Art Work by Rich Wagner
  • Great Artists
  • Art Museums
  • Art by Rich Wagner
  • Art reviews index
  • Beyondships Art Blog
  • Beyondships Cruise Destinations
  • Art by Valda
  • Beyondships cruise ships
  • Notices
  • Privacy Policy
  • London Art Roundup
  • Stephen Card Exhibition
  • Visiting Exhibitions
  • William Benton Museum
  • ASL 2024 exhibition
  • Magritte Museum
  • Old Masters Museum

Beyondships Art Blog

Exhibit review - Robert rauschenberg: Among friends

8/4/2017

 
 “Robert Rauschenberg: Among Friends” at the Museum of Modern Art in New York is the first 21st century retrospective of Robert Rauschenberg's work. Extending over several rooms, it is a well-organized survey of the artist's career.

Rauschenberg was born in Port Arthur, Texas and was initially going to be a pharmacist. However, World War II intervened and he was drafted into the United States Navy where he worked as a technician in a mental hospital. Following the war, he shifted his focus to art and studied at the Kansas City Art Institute, the Academie Julian in Paris and at Black Mountain College in North Carolina.

He also studied at the Art Students League in New York City. The League was a center of creativity in the late 1940s with a good camaraderie among the students. To illustrate, my mother (see Art by Valda) also studied there at that time.  Some 20 odd years later, I recall her mentioning that she had just spoken to Rauschenberg on the telephone about some artistic problem that she was trying to solve.  This took place even though they now inhabited different worlds and their approaches to art were quite different.

In the 1950s, Rauschenberg established himself as a successful artist and by the 1960s, he was already having one-man retrospective shows. His influential work was described as Neo-dada and he is credited with being a forerunner of the Pop Art movement.

The exhibit at MOMA contains some 250 works including some of his best known works such as “Bed”, “Canyon” and “Monogram.” As can be expected from MOMA, the works are displayed to advantage with a substantial amount of supporting information both posted near the works and on MOMA's free app.

The challenge in presenting a retrospective of an artists of the stature of Rauschenburg is to do so in a way that enables the viewer to draw conclusions about the artist and his works.

The first lesson I learned from this exhibition was that Rauschenberg's work was evolutionary. In general, the exhibit presents Rauschenburg's work chronologically. The works that one encounters at the beginning of the exhibit are much different than the works at the other end. Rauschenberg continued to grow throughout his career.

I was also impressed by his innovation. Rauschenberg sought to erase the boundaries between art and everyday life. Indeed, he is well-known for employing non-traditional materials and found objects in his works. This broadened the avenues for artistic expression. It also provoked viewers to think in new ways about the world around them.

Rauschenberg sought to provoke thought. Critics and academics attribute various meanings to his works. However, Rauschenberg declined to reveal their “true meaning.” His belief was that the meaning was in the control of the viewer. The work only created paths for dialogue. The viewer's thought process could change depending upon when he or she was viewing the work and what was happening in his or her life. Consequently, a work can have many meanings, all of which are valid.

We also see that creating art does not have to be a solitary pursuit. From his early work with his wife, the painter Susan Well, Rauschenberg collaborated with other artists. This includes people from the world of music and dance such as John Cage and Merce Cunningham as well as scientists who brought knowledge of technology to the effort.

For the most part, Rauschenberg's works are not aesthetically pleasing. You do not come away from one of his works thinking that it would look great in your living room. Like many intellectuals of his time, Rauschenberg resisted the idea that art should be pretty. As a result, he was uncomfortable with some of the pieces he created in the 1970s employing hand-spun silk fabrics that he found on a trip to India. They are by far the most eye pleasing works in the exhibit.
Museum of Modern Art exhibition of Robert Rauschenberg

Comments are closed.

    Author

    Rich Wagner is a writer, photographer and artist.

    This blog presents reviews of art exhibitions and art collections as well as articles on art and art technique.

    Archives

    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017

    Categories

    All
    Alexander Calder
    American Art
    Anthem Of The Seas
    Art
    Art Analysis
    Art Classes
    Art Review
    Art Technique
    Asian Art
    Asia Society Museum
    Auguste Rodin
    Charcoal
    Claude
    Claude Monet
    Colin McDowell
    Contemporary Art
    Corner Of A Cafe Concert
    Cruise Ship Art Class
    Cruise Ship Art Collections
    Cunard
    David Hockney
    Drawing
    Edouard Manet
    Exhibition Review
    Fashion Illustration
    Fashion Week
    Fine Art
    Folk Art
    Frederic Remington
    French Art
    Guernsey Museum
    Gustav Klimt
    Henry James
    Holland America
    Illustration
    Impressionism
    Indian Art
    Irish Museum Of Modern Art
    James McNeill Whistler
    Jason Brooks
    John Constable
    John Singer Sargent
    Joseph Cornell
    Juan Gris
    Kenneth Paul Black
    La Grenouillere
    Leon Golub
    Lucian Freud
    Manet
    Margret Clarke
    Matisse
    Matisse In The Studio
    Maud Lewis
    Max Ernst
    Metropolitan Museum Of Art
    Milk Fixative
    Modern Art
    MOMA
    Morgan Library And Museum
    Museums
    National Gallery Of Scotland
    National Portrait Gallery
    Neue Galerie
    Ocean Liners
    Painting
    Pastel Portraits
    Pastels
    Perez Art Museum
    Peter Le Vasseur
    Picasso
    Portraiture
    Poussin
    Queen Mary 2
    Rembrandt
    Review
    Royal Academy
    Sculpture
    Self-analyis
    Sketching
    Smart Phone
    Stephen Card
    Susan Klibanoff
    Victoria & Albert Museum
    Watercolor Class
    Whitney Museum Of American Art
    William McTaggart



    RSS Feed

Beyondships Cruise Destinations
(Travel articles about and profiles of destinations). 
Beyondships Cruise Ship Profiles
(Information about cruise ships)
Beyondships Cruise Ship Pictorials and Reviews
(Photos, videos and reviews of cruise ships)
Beyondships LLC 
Notices
Privacy Policy 
Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Great Artists
  • Art Museums
  • Art by Rich Wagner
  • Art reviews index
  • Beyondships Art Blog
  • Beyondships Cruise Destinations
  • Art by Valda
  • Beyondships cruise ships
  • Notices
  • Privacy Policy
  • London Art Roundup
  • Stephen Card Exhibition
  • Visiting Exhibitions
  • William Benton Museum
  • ASL 2024 exhibition
  • Magritte Museum
  • Old Masters Museum