Pop Art by Robert Rauschenberg Celebrates Earth Day
April 5, 2009
As an artist and as a citizen, Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008) was deeply concerned with how his art could help change the world for the better.
During his lifetime, his artwork addressed issues of environmentalism, war, racial equality, nuclear disarmament, apartheid, economic development, and artists’ rights – an array of big-picture social and political themes that are challenging for artists (or anyone else) to tackle.
Rauschenberg was up to this challenge, and this strong and unique global consciousness and ethics set him apart from other artists in the Pop Art movement.
Robert Rauschenberg celebration of Earth Day
To celebrate the very first Earth Day in 1970, Robert Rauschenberg created the collage ‘Earth Day’ based on which this original lithograph “Earth Day” is created. April 22, 1970 was the day that approximately 25 million Americans joined forces across the nation to insist on a cleaner, healthier planet. It was a day of culmination of the forces of the ’60s.
This powerful promotional artwork by Robert Rauschenberg was the first of its kind, to popularize and celebrate the observance of Earth Day.
The Eagle as torch-carrier in the Artwork
The centerpiece of the collage, the American Bald Eagle, is perfectly chosen! Of course, as a symbol, it reflects America’s self image as strong and powerful. Yet, at the time the artwork was made, the American bald eagle was endangered with extinction due to pesticides!! A threat of destruction of the nation’s reflection of itself!
In addition, and perhaps more importantly Native Americans know the American Bald Eagle to be a bird of illumination of Spirit, Healing and Creation. To Native Americans the Bald Eagle have come to symbolize heroic nobility & Divine Spirit. It is one of the most admired birds of prey. Its ability to soar high in the sky is awe-inspiring. Meanwhile, it is good at feeding itself from the land.
To align oneself with the symbol of the eagle, we must take responsibility and the power of becoming so much more than we now appear to be. When an eagle flies into our lives, opportunities arise. We must learn to see these opportunities and use them well.
The eagle is also seen as a messenger from heaven, and are the embodiment of the spirit of the sun. Its feathers are used in powerful healing ceremonies & cleansing the aura. Associated with the eagle are far reaching visions.
Signed Original Limited-Edition Lithograph for Sale
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The limited edition print is hand signed and measures 33.5 x 25 .25 inches. This item has been stored flat and is in near mint condition with very light signs of handling.
Timeless Art, Filled with Meaning, Affordable
This lithograph is priced at only about $2,800 – this is a really, really low when compared to art market sources.
About Rober Rauschenberg – Artistically
Robert Rauschenberg (1925 – 2008) was a groundbreaking Pop Artist whose visionary work profoundly revolutionized the course of American and European art. From Texas, Rauschenberg had a voracious appetite for limitless experimentation with new techniques and unique materials, which broke all artistic boundaries.
Embracing the arts of silk screening, digital imagery and set design, his most acclaimed creations were “combines,” giant three-dimensional works that paired paint with objects he found on the street, such as scraps of clothing, tires, furniture and cardboard. Rauschenberg’s work re-established the beauty of cast-off items, and solidified him as a pivotal figure in the Pop Art movement.
We all live from day to day. We move from moment to moment, mood to mood, making decisions that control our acts, insisting and recognizing that facts are changing like the light we are seeing them in and as our motivation to look. – Robert Rauschenberg
Elegy for Robert Rauschenberg
September 19, 2008
Painting relates to both art and life. Neither can be made. (I try to act in that gap between the two.)
– Robert Rauschenberg, 1959
“Elegy for Robert Rauschenberg is an homage to an artist who was my personal hero, and my nemesis, in my student years.” says Susan Sollins-Brown from Art21. “He was my hero because of the infallibility of his touch, and the constancy of his ability to invent and re-invent the potency and power of visual art — to push the boundaries of what art could be.
He was my nemesis because I saw him as pure genius and his every gesture as perfection — conditions that were not, I thought, possible for others to attain. But my joy and delight in his work continued and my pleasure in talking with him from time to time over the years was enormous.
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Curated by Paul Schimmel, Robert Rauchenberg: Combines was shown in early 2006 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. On seeing it there, and upon learning that there were no plans to film it, I asked Bob for permission to do so at the next venue, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.
This elegy is dedicated to the memory of Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008) and to the memory of his friendship with my late husband, Earle Brown (1926-2002), whose music has been intertwined and juxtaposed here with images of the glorious Combines.”
Elegy for Robert Rauschenberg has been created from footage filmed by Art21 at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles during the 2006 exhibition of Robert Rauschenberg: Combines.
- Among the works seen in whole or in part are
- Minutiae (1954);
- Interview (1955);
- Monogram (1955-59);
- Canyon (1959);
- Gift for Apollo (1959);
- Black Market (1961);
- Empire II (1961);
- Pantomime (1961);
- Ace (1962); and
- Gold Standard (1964).
The video is set to music composed by Earle Brown who, along with Rauschenberg, was a member of a small group of friends in the 1950s that included John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Morton Feldman, Jasper Johns, and Christian Wolff, among others. In the spirit of that long-ago friendship, and in the collaborative spirit of that time and group, excerpts from the following works by Brown have been selected and collaged, with permission of The Earle Brown Music Foundation, for this video: Music for Violin, Cello, & Piano (1952); Octet I (1953); Folio and 4 Systems (1954); String Quartet (1965); New Piece (1971); and Special Events (1999).
VIDEO | Producer: Susan Sollins. Camera: Bob Elfstrom. Sound: Ray Day. Editor: Lizzie Donahue. Special thanks to Robert Rauschenberg’s Studio and David White; Paul Schimmel and The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; The Earle Brown Music Foundation and Thomas Fichter.
Pop Art Forerunner Robert Rauschenberg died at 82
May 18, 2008
The American artist Robert Rauschenberg passed away May 13 at age 82.
Rauschenberg gained fame in the 1950s transition from Abstract Expressionism to Pop Art. Several of his works — including “Canyon,” which featured a stuffed bald eagle affixed to a canvas; “Monogram,” a stuffed Angora goat on top of a painted panel; and “Bed,” a quilt, sheet and pillow slathered with paint and framed on a wall — became icons of postwar modernism.
Born Milton Ernest Rauschenberg, he briefly attended the University of Texas at Austin in 1943 and served in the U.S. Navy during World War II prior to studying art. Upon being honorably discharged in the summer of 1945, Rauschenberg enrolled at the Kansas City Art Institute (1947) and later at the Academia Julien in Paris (1948) before studying with Josef Albers at Black Mountain College in North Carolina, where he formed life-long friendships with John Cage, Merce Cunningham and David Tudor. After moving to New York City in 1949, Rauschenberg enrolled in the Arts Students League.
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In the spring of 1951, Rauschenberg was invited to exhibit at the Betty Parsons Gallery in New York City.
Two years later he created the first of his acclaimed Combine sculptures, works that incorporated painting and a variety of found objects.
The juxtaposition of different media (lithography, painting, photography, silk-screening and sculpture) and their interplay comprise Rauschenberg’s chief interests, and throughout his career, his work has been marked by a sense of experimentation and chance.
Robert Rauschenberg
Canyon
1959
mixed mediums with taxidermy bald eagle and pillow, ca. 87 x 70 x 24 in.
Sonnabend Collection
During the 1950s, Rauschenberg also began his lifelong involvement and affiliation with theatre and dance, designing sets and costumes for a variety of productions worldwide. At the time of his death Texas native was a painter, photographer, printmaker, choreographer, onstage performer, set designer and a composer.
Robert Rauschenberg experimented boundlessly. “I’m curious” he said in 1997 in one of the few interviews he granted in later years. It’s very rewarding. I’m still discovering things every day.”
Rauschenberg’s more than 50 years in art produced a varied and prolific collection that showed America that all of life could be open to art. … Rauschenberg didn’t give a fig for consistency, or curating his reputation; his taste was always omnivorous, and hit-or-miss, yet he had a bigness of soul and a richness of temperament that recalled Walt Whitman.
Rauschenberg split his time between New York and Captiva Island in Florida, where he kept a house stocked with his own art and those of his friends.
Prices for Robert Rauschenberg’s works start at $3000+ for a signed limited edition. Two days ago Sotheby’s sale records show his 1963 painting “Overdrive” sold for some $14.6 million.
source: rareposters at pressbox.co.uk
Robert Rauschenberg – video
April 28, 2008
This video is an excerpt of Robert Rauschenberg’s orginal footage ‘Linoleum’ It is part of his 1966 art ‘Happening’.
Black/white, silent film.
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