Rauschenberg’s Presence Is Returning To Wadsworth Atheneum

HARTFORD — “Robert Rauschenberg: Current Scenarios,” an exhibition of new and early work by the contemporary American master, will open at Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art on February 7.

The showing marks the artist’s first major presence at Wadsworth Atheneum in forty years. It will remain on view until September 5.

Mr Rauschenberg made his Wadsworth Atheneum debut in 1964, in several guises. His legendary “Erased de Kooning Drawing” (1953) had its first public showing with other early work in the group exhibition “Black, White and Grey: Contemporary Painting and Sculpture, which ran from mid-January to mid-February.

He returned that March as the designer of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company for the world premieres of Cunningham’s Paired and Winterbranch. Rauschenberg’s controversial designs for the latter had the company dancing in black sweat clothes in a darkness violently punctuated by lamp beams he directed according to chance operations.

In May of that year, the Wadsworth Atheneum formally accessioned Rauchenberg’s “Retroactive I” (1963-64), a gift from the prominent art collector Susan Morse Hilles. The image of President John F. Kennedy, who had been assassinated only months earlier, is at the center of this silk-screened painting, which quickly became one of the artist’s most famous as well as an icon of 1960s America.

Then in March 1965, Mr Rauschenberg performed at the Wadsworth with Yvonne Rainer, one of many notable choreographers with whom he collaborated.

For over fifty years, random order, collage and assemblage, and image transfer techniques have been central to Mr Rauschenberg’s artistic production. This will be evident in 18 works from the new, photo-based series “Scenarios,” which will have their first public showing in the upcoming exhibition at the Wadsworth.

Measuring approximately 7 by 10 feet, the large-scale panels depict commonplace scenes and objects, such as traffic signs, newspapers, billboards, plants and animals, derived from Rauschenberg’s vast archive of found and self-generated imagery.

Art ripped from the headlines might describe “Currents,” Rauschenberg’s 1970 collage and silkscreen series. In addition, the exhibition will feature loans from private and public collections.

Programs planned in conjunction with the exhibition include a March 2 gallery talk, “Robert Rauschenberg: Current Scenarios,” noon, led by museum director Willard Holmes. On May 11 acting director of education Dana Engstrom DeLoach will lead a second gallery talk, “Robert Rauschenberg Revisited.”

Both programs begin at noon, and participants should meet in the Helen & Harry Gray Court (main lobby).

Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, at 600 Main Street in Hartford, can be contacted at 860-278-2670.