Rauschenberg at Tate Modern
Have now visited this three times; it is FANTASTIC (sorry to shout). There is one beautiful room with a huge Combine called “Ace”, which I wrote about last week; see below. you have to visit though, because the photo doesn’t do it justice. Blues, yellows, rose red swatches and swags of paint; a wooden plaque with the title stuck at the top. a screwed-up rag rather like a dragon crouching on its surface.
Ace, Rauschenberg (1962)
In the same room, a pair of panels in red and white, one with a pair of electric fans attached on opposite sides of the painting, a swirling mass of silver, cream and pink brushstrokes enclosed between; the other (below), with wire coils, a watch and a piece of metal bolted on.
Also in this room, see and marvel at “Gold Standard”, the gold screen with an HMV dog attached (also an old boot). “Black Market” and the one in the corner with the two panels divided by a short ladder – they are all great. This room alone is a breathtaking exhibition, but there is much more:
The silkscreens with paint on, best of which is “Estate” –
Estate
The cardboard sculptures, like the one below, with the “exploded” section:
The “Gluts”, metal scrapyard pieces (see below):
Sunset Glut
Stop Side Early Winter Glut, 1987
And the “Jammers” (flag/banner pieces), “Oracle”, a five-piece sculpture made from stripped-down car door, air conditioning unit et al, all mounted on little wheels, several landmark pieces, such as the erased de Kooning drawing, the “crime scene” bed, “Monogram” (the goat in the tyre, which Alistair Sooke described as a metaphor for homosexual intercourse – a suggestion which visibly shocked a woman curator on an excellent BBC2 documentary on Rauschenberg the other day) – and loads more (dance videos, old socks, parasols and parachutes, bubbling mud, a ladder to a porthole to the wall, a sketchy toothbrush…).
What I like about Rauschenberg is the colour – and the texture, of course, but the colour is beautiful. He uses that yellow over and over again, the one on the bent fenders in “Sunset Glut”. They are sort of industrial, but beautiful.
Interesting to see his clear influence on Johns – not surprising, really – who was hanging brooms on his pictures and inserting balls into crevices within pictures, and painting in those big swatches too; maybe he was the influence, but my money is on Rausch, given his later diversity. Also, there was an Appel abstract, with a bucket dangling from it, which I wrote about some time back; must look it up.
According to What, Jasper Johns (1964)
Schvendel
I have to mention “Schwendel” again; in the film “Painters Painting”, Rauschenberg is interviewed about his Red Paintings and speaking about how red has a lot of black in it, he says something like “..it’s the abundance of colour in the painting, rather than the schvendel of the painting…”?? I can’t find the word anywhere; does anyone know what schvendel is?
Elton John’s photo collection, Tate Modern
Rather gone over the top on Rauschenberg, and will be going back there, so only a quick superficial mention of this exhibition in the Switch Room. Several Penns, mostly, like Stravinsky, celebrities squashed into a corner of a bare room…
Igor Stravinsky, Irving Penn
John seems to have Hoovered up a set of the most well-known images from the USA, USSR (Rodchenko) and elsewhere;
Dorothea Lange
Also, several of those Man Ray photos with the thin black line round the image, like that of Sir Kenneth Clark’s wife.
The Godfather
At my eldest son’s wedding on Saturday, speeches over, sitting waiting for the food, on my fourth (or fifth) prosecco refill; looking around – radiant bride in white, no.1 son, lovely wife, the other two “boys” in sharp suits with cream ties, deep in conversation with their neighbours at table, I had that slow-motion film cliche moment again: a huge, tongue-tied minion, uncomfortable and sweating in his tight suit, approaches me deferentially, hands me an envelope stuffed with banknotes and addressing me as Don Chich, assures me of his everlasting loyalty on the occasion of the marriage of my son….and then I woke up, prosecco coming round again..
First of a set of ten paintings on theme of time and place, this is November Lisbon.
Blackpaint
13/12/16
Blackpaint's Blog 