Robert Rauschenberg: Image and Gesture

Surveying Rauschenberg’s varied contributions to postmodern art, from his “Combines” to his metal works and everything in between

Published with Kunsthalle Krems/Robert Rauschenberg Foundation/Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac.

Best known for his “Combines,” in which he incorporated everyday objects and found materials into abstract paintings, American artist Robert Rauschenberg (1925–2008) melded painting, sculpture, collage, photography and printmaking into hybrid forms. Organized chronologically, this volume surveys his oeuvre through all of its phases, beginning with his interplay between photography and gestural painting in the ’50s, to the emergence of his silkscreen paintings in the early ’60s, to his increased focus on metal as a support for paint during the ’80s, to his turn to digital image processes in the ’90s. It also documents Rauschenberg’s performative, theatrical and interdisciplinary projects, for which he collaborated with artists such as John Cage, Niki de Saint Phalle, Jasper Johns and Jean Tinguely. The volume includes a biography, timeline and short expository texts that precede each section. Altogether, Image and Gesture attests to Rauschenberg’s propulsive experimentation with mediums and materiality.