Robert Rauschenberg, rue de Ponthieu, Paris, September 28–November 12, 2011

Installation Views

Robert Rauschenberg. Installation view, photo by Zarko Vijatovic — Robert Rauschenberg
Installation view, photo by Zarko Vijatovic

Thumbnail - Robert Rauschenberg. Installation view, photo by Zarko Vijatovic

Works Exhibited

Robert Rauschenberg Street Archer (Urban Bourban), 1992. Acrylic on enameled aluminum, 67 × 45 ⅛ × 2 inches (170.2 × 114.6 × 5.1 cm) © Robert Rauschenberg Foundation/Licensed by VAGA, New York — Robert Rauschenberg
*Street Archer (Urban Bourban)*, 1992
Acrylic on enameled aluminum, 67 × 45 ⅛ × 2 inches (170.2 × 114.6 × 5.1 cm)
© Robert Rauschenberg Foundation/Licensed by VAGA, New York

Robert Rauschenberg Sky Doily (Urban Bourbon), 1993. Acrylic on anodized aluminum, 121 ¼ × 49 inches (308 × 124.5 cm) — Robert Rauschenberg
*Sky Doily (Urban Bourbon)*, 1993
Acrylic on anodized aluminum, 121 ¼ × 49 inches (308 × 124.5 cm)

Robert Rauschenberg The Ancient Incident (Kabal American Zephyr), 1981–2006. Patinaed cast bronze, 86 ½ × 91 × 21 inches (219.7 × 231.1 × 53.3 cm) — Robert Rauschenberg
*The Ancient Incident (Kabal American Zephyr)*, 1981–2006
Patinaed cast bronze, 86 ½ × 91 × 21 inches (219.7 × 231.1 × 53.3 cm)

Thumbnail - Robert Rauschenberg Street Archer (Urban Bourban), 1992. Acrylic on enameled aluminum, 67 × 45 ⅛ × 2 inches (170.2 × 114.6 × 5.1 cm) © Robert Rauschenberg Foundation/Licensed by VAGA, New York

Thumbnail - Robert Rauschenberg Sky Doily (Urban Bourbon), 1993. Acrylic on anodized aluminum, 121 ¼ × 49 inches (308 × 124.5 cm)

Thumbnail - Robert Rauschenberg The Ancient Incident (Kabal American Zephyr), 1981–2006. Patinaed cast bronze, 86 ½ × 91 × 21 inches (219.7 × 231.1 × 53.3 cm)

About

There is no poor subject. A pair of socks is no less suitable to make a painting than wood, nails, turpentine, oil, and fabric.
— Robert Rauschenberg

Gagosian Gallery Paris is pleased to present an exhibition of painting and sculpture by Robert Rauschenberg.

Rauschenberg stands as one of the most inventive artists in American art, arguably the first of his generation to chart a viable course out of Abstract Expressionism towards the formal integration of art and the mess of life. His approach to making art using discarded materials, everyday objects and appropriated images eviscerated the distinctions between medium and genre, abstraction and representation, while his “flatbed picture plane” created an enduring change in the relationship between artist, image, and viewer. From the outset, the incidental, the immediate, and the perception of a presence greater than his own artistic virtuosity drove Rauschenberg’s creative energies. By working in what he called “the gap between art and life” he developed an altogether new visual language based on collage as a microcosm of the unbounded world that rejected the conventions of unitary meaning advanced by high art.

In the early Elemental Sculptures, Rauschenberg stripped the medium to its fundaments, using fragments of found wood, brick, concrete and iron to create sculptures and pedestals possessing a quiet humility that belies their latent energy. His unending fascination with the incidental materials that he came across in the urban environment is evident in two floor-based works, Hue Cart (1982), a little tricycle wheel jauntily positioned between three candy-striped construction poles, or The Brutal Calming of the Waves by Moonlight (1981), a simple yet forceful consisting of a crushed metal drum from which a large piece of scrap metal thrusts out into space.

Artist

Robert Rauschenberg

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