"This book is the first in thirty years to be devoted exclusively to Robert Rauschenberg’s photographic oeuvre and the first in-depth presentation of the artist’s photographs taken between 1949 and 1962. Many of the images included here have not been published since 1981. Though highly influential to others, and of critical importance to Rauschenberg’s own thought processes, this body of work has suffered from limited exposure. The magnitude and breadth of the images in this book should not only alleviate this neglect but also, we trust, inspire a clearer understanding of Rauschenberg’s contribution to the photographic medium..."
-Susan Davidson and David White
"What is a photograph? Much of Robert Rauschenberg's protean work seems designed to test the limits and tease out the fissures, ambiguities, and overlaps within the category of the photographic. Where, then, might Photograph, one of Rauschenberg's Combine paintings from 1959, fit within this? For Rauschenberg, so capacious and elastic was the photographic that it could encompass even an object made from detritus such as scraps of paper, photographs, metal, fabric, and wood mounted on canvas. Photograph incorporates two of Rauschenberg's photographs of almost identical landscape horizons set within a composition of assemblage to form a mise en abyme of photography itself. To return to the opening question of this essay: what if we begin to think of the entirety of Rauschenberg's output as essentially a photographic endeavor, with the Combines, performances, silkscreens, White Paintings, and black paintings all ultimately being individual facets of a larger, essentially lens-based, photographic project? As Walter Hopps has written on the fundamental and generative role of photography within Rauschenberg's work, 'The use of photography has long been an essential device for Rauschenberg's melding of imagery. While photography is an inadequate metaphor for the complexity of retinal reception, it remains a vital means for Rauschenberg's aesthetic investigations of how humans perceive, select, and combine visual information. Without photography, much of Rauschenberg's oeuvre would scarcely exist.'"
Nicholas Cullinan, excerpted from his essay, "To Exist in Passing Time."
Edited by David White, Susan Davidson. Text by Nicholas Cullinan.
Robert Rauschenberg's engagement with photography began in the late 1940s under the tutelage of Hazel Larsen Archer at Black Mountain College in North Carolina. This exposure (or experience) was so great that for a time Rauschenberg was unsure whether to pursue painting or photography as a career. Instead, he chose both, and found ways to fold photography into his Combines, maintained a practice of photographing friends and family, documented the evolution of artworks and occasionally dramatized them by inserting himself into the picture frame. As Walter Hopps wrote, "The use of photography has long been an essential device for Rauschenberg's melding of imagery... [and] a vital means for Rauschenberg's aesthetic investigations of how humans perceive, select and combine visual information. Without photography, much of Rauschenberg's oeuvre would scarcely exist." The artist himself affirmed, "I've never stopped being a photographer." This volume gathers and surveys for the first time Rauschenberg's numerous uses of photography. This publication includes portraits of friends such as Cy Twombly, Jasper Johns, Merce Cunningham and John Cage, studio shots, photographs used in the Combines and Silkscreen paintings, photographs of lost artworks and works in process. This allows us to re-imagine almost the entirety of the artist's output in light of his always inventive uses of photography, while also supplying previously unseen glimpses into his social milieu of the 1950s and early 60s. Painter, sculptor, printmaker and photographer Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008) provided a crucial bridge between Abstract Expressionism and Pop art. After studying at Black Mountain College under Josef Albers, Rauschenberg moved to New York where he formed close allegiances with Jasper Johns and Cy Twombly, began his groundbreaking Combines, collaborated with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company and co-launched the non-profit Experiments in Art and Technology. Considered one of the most innovative artists of his era, he died in 2008.
DAVID WHITE has been the curator for Robert Rauschenberg from 1980 until his death in 2008 and continues in that capacity with his Estate. As such, he has been engaged in every Rauschenberg exhibition, publication, and project that the artist participated in. Prior to his work for Rauschenberg, Mr. White was an independent curator for art historian David Whitney, where he worked on retrospective exhibitions of Jasper Johns and Cy Twombly and the first exhibition of Warhol Portraits. From 1965 to 1972, Mr. White worked for the Leo Castelli Gallery, where he experienced firsthand the New York art world. Mr. White is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design.
NICHOLAS CULLINAN is Curator of International Modern Art at Tate Modern in London. There, he has worked on exhibitions such as, Cy Twombly: Cycles and Seasons, Duchamp, Man Ray, Picabia, Pop Life: Art in A Material World and the contemporary group shows Stutter and Learn to Read. Forthcoming projects include creating Tacita Dean's commission for the turbine hall of Tate Modern in the autumn of 2011. In the summer of 2011 he will also curate the exhibition Twombly and Poussin: Arcadian Painters to celebrate the bicentenary of Dulwich Picture Gallery, London. Before joining Tate, he was the Hilla Rebay Fellow at the Guggenheim Museums in New York, Bilbao and Venice and the Helena Rubinstein Intern in the Department of Photography at The Museum of Modern Art, New York. He was trained at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, where he took his doctorate on Arte Povera. He lectures widely and writes regularly for journals such as Artforum, The Burlington Magazine, Frieze, Mousse and October. He is currently writing a monograph on Cy Twombly.
SUSAN DAVIDSON, Senior Curator, Collections & Exhibitions, at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, was a curatorial advisor to Robert Rauschenberg from 2001 until his death in 2008, and is currently a Trustee of the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation. She has prepared numerous exhibitions and catalogues on the artist.
Robert Rauschenberg Photographs Projected at the Rauschenberg Foundation, New York. September 16 - October 3, 2011
RAUSCHENBERG: CANYON Text by Leah Dickerman. THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, NEW YORK ISBN: 9780870708947 | US $14.95 Pub Date: 11/30/2013 | Awaiting stock
ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG: PHOTOGRAPHS Edited by David White, Susan Davidson. Text by Nicholas Cullinan. D.A.P./SCHIRMER/MOSEL ISBN: 9781935202523 | US $75.00 Pub Date: 9/30/2011 Active | In stock
ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG: GLUTS Edited by Susan Davidson. Text by Trisha Brown, Mimi Thompson. Preface by Philip Rylands. GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM ISBN: 9780892073887 | US $45.00 Pub Date: 7/31/2009 Active | In stock
ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG Text by Carolyn Lanchner. THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, NEW YORK ISBN: 9780870707674 | US $9.95 Pub Date: 1/31/2010 Active | In stock
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Robert Rauschenberg: Photographs
Published by: D.A.P./Schirmer/Mosel
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LIST PRICE: U.S. $75.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $75 ISBN: 9781935202523 PUBLISHER: D.A.P./Schirmer/Mosel AVAILABLE: 9/30/2011 FORMAT: Hbk, 9.5 x 11 in. / 232 pgs / 136 duotone / 31 color. DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Active AVAILABILITY: In stock
D.A.P. CATALOG: SPRING 2011 Page 177
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Robert Rauschenberg: Photographs 1949-1962 Edited by David White, Susan Davidson. Text by Nicholas Cullinan.
Robert Rauschenberg's engagement with photography began in the late 1940s under the tutelage of Hazel Larsen Archer at Black Mountain College in North Carolina. This exposure (or experience) was so great that for a time Rauschenberg was unsure whether to pursue painting or photography as a career. Instead, he chose both, and found ways to fold photography into his Combines, maintained a practice of photographing friends and family, documented the evolution of artworks and occasionally dramatized them by inserting himself into the picture frame. As Walter Hopps wrote, "The use of photography has long been an essential device for Rauschenberg's melding of imagery... [and] a vital means for Rauschenberg's aesthetic investigations of how humans perceive, select and combine visual information. Without photography, much of Rauschenberg's oeuvre would scarcely exist." The artist himself affirmed, "I've never stopped being a photographer." This volume gathers and surveys for the first time Rauschenberg's numerous uses of photography. This publication includes portraits of friends such as Cy Twombly, Jasper Johns, Merce Cunningham and John Cage, studio shots, photographs used in the Combines and Silkscreen paintings, photographs of lost artworks and works in process. This allows us to re-imagine almost the entirety of the artist's output in light of his always inventive uses of photography, while also supplying previously unseen glimpses into his social milieu of the 1950s and early 60s. Painter, sculptor, printmaker and photographer Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008) provided a crucial bridge between Abstract Expressionism and Pop art. After studying at Black Mountain College under Josef Albers, Rauschenberg moved to New York where he formed close allegiances with Jasper Johns and Cy Twombly, began his groundbreaking Combines, collaborated with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company and co-launched the non-profit Experiments in Art and Technology. Considered one of the most innovative artists of his era, he died in 2008.
