Archive 1963

Robert Rauschenberg made this collage, or "combine" as he called them, layering printed imagery, paint and found objects. Rauschenberg embraces the process of artmaking and makes it visible in this work. Here you can see the layering of imagery and how he builds up the surface through many different marks. The red circular form in the middle acts as an anchor for the eye. It is also a disruption, like a wound in the image, contrasting with the more photographic imagery around it. This interplay between abstraction and representation is something Rauschenberg was always so good at. He manages to find a balance between control and chaos, which gives his work a kind of raw energy. Rauschenberg's approach reminds me of what Schwitters was doing in Europe a few decades earlier, but Rauschenberg was really creating something new, making art out of the world around him. For Rauschenberg, art was not separate from life, but a part of it.