Light House Wall (Runt) 2007

This is Robert Rauschenberg’s *Lighthouse Wall (Runt)*, and it looks like it was made with photos, maybe silkscreened, and then stuck to a surface, creating a layered tableau of urban fragments. I can only imagine what it must have been like to gather all these images. Rauschenberg was like a hunter and gatherer, finding his materials in the world around him and bringing them back to his studio to arrange and compose. Here, we have a visual cacophony – cars, portraits, graffiti, figures working – all jostling for space, and connected by stark white segments. It's like a visual poem about the modern city, a place of constant flux and change. Rauschenberg challenges our perceptions. This layering technique feels very aligned with his practice, where he was always pushing the boundaries of painting, sculpture, and collage. He was, after all, one of those artists in ongoing conversation, exchanging ideas across time, inspiring one another's creativity. Painting is an embodied expression which embraces ambiguity, allowing for multiple interpretations and meanings.