Rauschenberg’s iconic work Monogram will travel to the UK for the first time in 50 years, to be displayed as part of Tate Modern’s upcoming exhibition showcasing the artist’s work it has been confirmed.
Considered to be one of the artist’s most famous Combines, these works combine painting and sculpture and were developed by Rauschenberg in the 1950’s and considered to be his greatest achievement.
This particular Combine,titled Monogram is extremely delicate and rarely travels, making this an extremely unique opportunity to see this piece in public. It has been lent for the exhibition by the Moderna Museet, Stockholm, where the goat has recently undergone conservation treatment including an x-ray examination in preparation for its journey and has not been seen in London since 1964.
The work will take centre stage in a room devoted to Rauschenberg’s Combines, which will also include Bed 1955, which was assembled from what was allegedly Rauschenberg’s own pillow and a quilt given as a gift by fellow artist, Dorothea Rockburne, stretched like a canvas and covered with abstract pencil drawings and paint.
This new retrospective of the artists work is the first in the UK for 35 years and will reveal an artist who refused to accept conventional categories of what was and wasn’t art.
Achim Borchardt-Hume, Director of Exhibitions, Tate Modern said: “Rauschenberg saw the experience of art as inseparable from the experience of life and so made work from all sorts of materials – textiles, cardboard boxes, car parts, radios and even stuffed animals. Rauschenberg exploded the myth of the artist working isolated in the studio and revelled in making connections between the stuff of the world and the materials and strategies traditionally associated with ‘high art.’ He blazed a new trail for art in the second half of the 20th century and became a beacon for other artists for generations to come.”
The exhibition has been organised between Tate Modern and The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Robert Rauschenberg will be on display at Tate Modern from the 1st December until the 2nd April 2017. For more information and to book tickets visit: http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/robert-rauschenberg