Robert Rauschenberg at Tate Modern

welcome to the art channel in this film we'll be visiting an exhibition of work by the American artist Robert Rauschenberg russian-backed live between 1925 and 2008 is regarded as one of the 20th century's most pivotal artists monogram made between 1955 and 1959 is arguably Russian Berg's most iconic and famous work and it's theatrical 'ti it's shot that explains why we're looking at an Angora goat that he sought from a mundane office furniture store and he bought it for $15 and took it back to studio but it took him three different iterations they were full year to find a resolution to the dilemma what do you do with an Angora goat so that it didn't simply seem as if he was just inserting the goat into an art Ruppel rather he's trying to achieve this kind of symbiosis really you're right I mean it took him a long long time to figure it out and I'm always surprised that he made very meticulous drawings to prepare for the piece of work I think Jasper garland who was the studio upstairs they consulted on a regular basis and John still has that early drawing so it's not the kind of um a casual piece thrown together in any way there's a lot of thought has gone into it and initially I think the goat was to go in front of a more traditional painting on a wall but putting the painting on the floor makes it operate too in sculpture and painting which is really quite exciting and on the face of this little goat lots of Abstract Expressionists beautiful gestural conifer paint marks this is again part of the series of combines combining sculptural and painterly characteristics he's Russian berg is behaving like the iconoclast he always was he's breaking through their boundaries those definition that constrictions that you were bailed against from his early years a black mountain college and this work really shoehorns together so me from odd and jarring for contradictions we got a shirt leave there the heel from a shoe we've got the goat stuffed through wedged into this rubber tire and there's a lot of interpretation around what this angora go actually represents what do you say lots of things I'm not sure but I'm a news that it has a seemingly left behind a tennis ball there are lots of references it is serious fun and you can understand why when it was shown Leo Castelli in New York people were absolutely outraged by the subject some amuse but some completely outraged and I think you mentioned Black Mountain College which is quite interesting he trained under Josef Albers Harry in his iconic colorist this purist in a way and ration Berg says that you know he he basically did everything that I was told him not to so he rebelled against that and still you have this fantastic rebellion happening here it's so transitional isn't it it's it's unfit it's in slow and that's what makes it kind of charged and electric this goat stucked through the tire emit sort of cheeky as well it's a mischievous goat at the same time the kid becomes a kind of a victim at this sort of accident it's a very peculiar work but nevertheless you know it's astonishing and it's light again it becomes lastly a kind of stage instead of painting on the wall hung vertically here we've got horizontal platform that feels as if it's um you know an arena in which to act and fifty years before Damien Hirst yeah absolutely here we're standing in front of gold standard which is the last of ration bed combines made in 1964 while he was on tour in Japan with Merce Cunningham dance company and the weights produced this extraordinary was made on stage in a way in response to the idea of an interview well it really embodied doesn't Russian Berg's interest in performance and collaboration that at the heart of this piece is a kind of resist them to because he's being asked questions and his sole response is to work on this combine created on a traditional gold that Japanese folding screen he took the screen on stage as you say and he took a black frame off off fear of the screen and then started by smashing it with black and white paint and then adding all these objects which he found on the streets of Tokyo so we have workman's boots we have a little his master's voice dog sitting on a bicycle seat very kind of Duchamp something from road works a coca-cola bottle alarm clock so all these objects which he gives really great status in a way well it appears quite an ark helmet but at the same time it's very intuitive and Russian both really values this idea of responding to the world these combines of being able to accumulate material that reflects where he is the specific time and more importantly the wider culture in this case Japan which was quite foreign to whom he was encountering it for the first time so these are still so kind of vibrant these combine two exciting and dynamic and they push art in this holy new direction so it's a critical work and it really sort of illustrates Rauschenberg achievements notice i think if you say he wanted art to reflect real life and he said famously i want my art pieces to look like things outside my window rather than things inside my studio so he is responding to being a tourist and newcomer in tokyo and it's very eclectic he kind of update society of the object rouler and it you're right it's still challenging it's still refreshing but it's the last major combine that he made before he moves on to screen print paintings and so it's a kind of end point a climax really to this investigation in the found ready-made object which he then can animate choreographed into this extremely ensemble we're standing a front of piece of work would retroactively - which is part of a series of mixed media pieces so it's a screen print and oil paint on canvas and as we can see this is John F Kennedy the American president this is made in 1964 but really interestingly started in 1963 before Kennedy's death and rauschenberg had real issues about whether he would use the image and continue with the piece which he did and you can see there's lots of other kind of eclectic imagery so we have this strange speedometer down the bottom with tomorrow and whether we have space travel we have Venus we have military trucks brought together and it's it's really a it's a moment in American history isn't it well he's drawing on a tradition of color but with the twist that he's in a sense transferring images from photography really and found photographic sources through the silk screen process onto the surface of a canvas oak is complicated and disrupt in all of these different genres and media to leave us something that really demands our own engagement with it to kind of make sense of it to activate meaning from the image and fascinating that he gathers his imagery from sports journalism from newspapers from magazines brings it together he's you know he's politically engaged he's a great admirer of Kennedy so it is not a pop artist he might use that methodology or be a precursor but this is a very different way I think of making images although as you say it it's kind of beautifully messy and the silkscreen is miss registered so there's this idea of of an imperfect world and the implication of this is that any material all the stock of life can be brought into the world of art and give any kind of a value of meaning and relevant when he's connecting us to the culture all the time are beyond the studio out into the street out into the real world makes very dynamic because of that absolutely and at this point he's given around this at this point he's given the prize that Venice Biennale prize for painting which again delighted some of his audience and was completely surprising to a more traditional gallery audience but he really moved on the idea of putting images together of painting and of printing and finally as you indicated it's less ironic than say the proper of the banjee Warhol eclectic attach I'm kind of analytical but rather because you can see him almost like on a sort of a pin board arranging materials and we do this today more than ever when which he organized our world through sort of visual media that we are a not felt we're standing in front of mud news which was made between 68 and 71 and is a really interesting collaboration between wash and Berg and Cova our scientists part of experiments in art in technology it's great collaboration very noisy very visceral response to this piece well it it's entrancing over that it returns of the childhood to being on the beach flash around in the bar it's quite object at the same time because it reminds you of behind of not to carry the body of gases of Elemental materials or the sort of earliest origin of life itself and that's what I think interesting but when you look at it in its installation you have this giant plank of bentonite clay juxtaposed with as it were very sophisticated piece of technology at the time whereby the circuit responds with turns found yeah so the bubble generate a reaction within the tank we're here in 2017 looking at this piece of work but when it was made I mean a radical idea the idea that the audience would be so involved and actually initially they were very involved they put their hands into it they smeared mud on the walls then a guard was introduced but it is really a very basic piece and he wanted it to be very primal so our response to be very primal and it starts kind of draw you in as you say lots of associations with bodies functions with mud with yellow skin part with geezers with hot water it's quite fascinating piece and of course the moon-landing that take place during the period is making it ideal or the fascination with materiality and the character of the world around us whether it's in the cities or whether in nature and I like the idea that you can see the workings out in some ways it's very sophisticated but you can see the machinery you can see the way it's set up so you really are involved in the piece so Rauschenberg this exciting artist this risk-taker somebody who has a great joy in making art in objects materials for their own sake and I think if we look at contemporary work made now wouldn't have happened without Rauschenberg you can really see that trajectory those connections and somebody who really enjoyed working with other people I really admire spirit of generosity of openness the work is so kind of responsive to the world around and that's what's so you know important about his work in its legacy I think he is an artist who continually tests the character of art and a bit of potential in a really exciting and even moving way I think to see somebody who doesn't know what the answers are who isn't prepared to give you an answer but just keeps pushing pushing pushing is is still relevant and is still very engaging he's really a bridge between the early avant-garde movements of the 20th century to contemporary art today you see so much of his influence around us in the art world in the present and I think in his his achievements are enormous thank you for watching the art channel if you've enjoyed this film please give us a thumbs up you can also share and give you the film thank you also for your continuing support you can follow us on social media on Facebook on Instagram and on Twitter you

Channel: The Art Channel

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Keywords: Rauschenberg, Robert Rauschenberg Tate, Robert Rauschenberg, Tate Modern, The Art Channel, American Art, Painting, art, artist, london, assemblage, exhibition, arte, kunst, bellas artes, arte contemporáneo, современное искусство, combines, performance, Modern Art, 当代艺术, Contemporary Art, Moma, Pop Art, Dada, photography, Grace Adam, Joshua White, Merce Cunningham, John Cage, Trisha Brown, Jasper Johns, Marcel Duchamp, Sculpture, moma, art exhibition, Tate, bildende kunst, SFMOMA

Id: H30enh7g1c8

Length: 13min 39sec (819 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 16 2017