Starting his career as a representative of abstract expressionism, Rauschenberg came to his work in pop art and conceptualism. This artist is one of the key figures for American art.
early years
Robert Rauschenberg was born in Port Arthur in 1925. But not in the Chinese port city, but in the American steppe state of Texas. His father was a German emigrant and worked at a local power station, his mother was an Indian Cherokee tribe. After school, the future artist studied pharmacology in his native Texas, in the city of Austin. However, he dropped out of his studies in the first year, and the outbreak of war served only as an excuse for this. At this time, he worked as a nurse in a clinic for the mentally ill.
Beginning of the creative path
At 21, Rauschenberg decided to study art. First, he attends the Art Institute in Kansas City, then goes to Paris. Here he studies at the Julian French Academy of Art, where he meets his future wife Susan Weill, also an artist. Disappointed at a French school, in 1948, young people returned to America, to Black Mountain College in South Carolina. At this time, a "star" line-up gathered here: artist Joseph Albers, choreographer Merce Cunningham, composer John Cage. With the latter two, Robert Rauschenberg is working on "Theater Play No. 1." It involved dance, music, work with a slide projector. The production is considered to be the forerunner of the “Hepenings," staged conceptual events that gained popularity by the end of the twentieth century. The first years after college, the artist was engaged in window dressing in New York.
One color painting
At the beginning of his career as an artist, Robert Rauschenberg created several series of one-color paintings: “white painting”, “black painting” and “red painting”.
In the "white painting" on a white background, the artist depicted black letters, numbers and other symbols that everyone understood. The works were created at a time when abstract expressionism was the dominant style in America. Introducing generally understood symbols and real things into the picture, Rauschenberg destroyed the very abstractness of abstractionism. In the general cultural context, it looked rather bold. Later, the artist will have another direction of white painting. On the illuminated white background fell the shadows of the audience, actually creating an artwork. A lot of meanings layered here: the infinite variability of art, and its perception through the prism of individual experience, and the inevitable co-creation of the artist and the audience.
“Black Painting” was a canvas with newspapers pasted on it, covered in black enamel. For the "red painting" the artist used newspaper scraps, nails, ropes and other garbage.
In 1951, Robert Rauschenberg exhibited these works at Betty Parsons Gallery. The paintings were booed by critics immediately. It seemed like a complete failure. In 1952, the wife left the artist, unable to withstand his frankly bisexual orientation and free behavior. A year later, Robert Rauschenberg continued to work with the choreographer Cunningham. For more than ten years he created scenery, costumes for his troupe, participated in creating scripts.
Erased De Kooning
This work was one of the key in the work of Rauschenberg. In 1953, the artist bought a graphic work of the then-famous abstractionist De Kooning. Instead of hanging a picture in a frame above the sofa in the living room, Rauschenberg erased it and called it “De Kooning's Blurred Drawing”. Thus, he secured the authorship and created not only a new work of art, but also a new format of the work of art. Rauschenberg anticipates here postmodernism with its quotation, co-authorship and imposition of meanings. After this picture, they started talking about the young artist.
Combined paintings
Rauschenberg stood at the origins of such a phenomenon as the style of pop art. Here, ordinary objects were used as objects of art and their elements. As part of the "combined paintings", the artist combined the most prosaic things, turning them into objects of art. Incidentally, these were not only paintings in the strict sense of the word, but also installations, art objects and assemblies. Pop art style is even more clearly manifested in Rauschenberg’s later works, when the artist begins to use the symbols of American pop culture and life in his “decals”, although here he manifests himself in his ironic, but generally positive attitude towards the world around him. .
One of the most famous "combined paintings" is called "Bed", it was created in 1956. The painting was an artist’s spring mattress, set upright and thoroughly smeared with paint, which was characteristic of abstract expressionism. I must say that this style was the first national American trend of world level, therefore it had a sacred shade for local avant-garde artists. Here, the technique of abstract expressionism was used with a great deal of irony when applying a thick layer of paint on a regular mattress, which suddenly turned out to be a work of art.
International recognition
In 1958, Robert Rauschenberg opened his solo exhibition at the Leo Castelli Gallery. This time, connoisseurs perceived his work favorably. We can say that it was from this moment that the world fame of the artist began. In the early 60s, he began to create "decals." They were mirrored collages from newspapers and photographs, which the artist placed on a white background. According to the author’s plan, here the popular symbols of American culture should have encountered the elements of art paintings.
In 1964, the artist was presented with the main prize of the Venice Biennale. Despite the fact that even the Vatican spoke about the degradation of culture after this event, the pop art style was now officially recognized. Rauschenberg was rewarded not only morally but also materially: the prices of his paintings instantly increased several times.
Engineering Experiments
In the 60s, Rauschenberg created a joint project with engineer Kluver: the public association Experiments in Art and Technology. At this time, he worked on “revolver” mills with Plexiglass glass blades, which symbolized the abundance of information in the modern world. In 1969, the artist received an invitation from the NASA Space Research Center, after which he created the Petrified Moon lithography cycle. In 1970, Rauschenberg opened a charity for poor artists, and also built his own workshop near the coast of Florida on the island of Captiva. Here he died in the spring of 2008. In his last period of creativity, the master did not create anything stylistically new, while continuing to work on collages.
Together with Andy Warhol, Rauschenberg was one of the five most significant pop art artists. It is hardly possible to overestimate its influence on contemporary American art.