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Art, Culture

Robert Rauschenberg’s Retrospective at the Tate

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A car just passed and left a black mark on the ground. Following the line on the wall, the viewer starts his journey into Robert Rauschenberg’s art. Diving into the life-experience of an out of the ordinary, playful, unexpected artist. The black ink tire print welcomes your mind, plumbing it in an unconventional world where sculptures, paintings and industrials materials blend, and boundaries no longer exist.

In 1944, the young Milton Robert Rauschenberg embarked on his journey that took him miles away from the oil company town in Texas where he grew up. After traveling to Paris, he returned to the States and enrolled in the Black Mountain College, where he became the pupil of Joseph Albers, John Cage, and Merce Cunningham. Those teachers plunged him into creating using everyday materials, music, textiles, dances, and much more.

The retrospective exhibit, now at Tate Modern London, throws you right into Rauschenberg’s art journey from the end of the Black Mountain College to his life in New York with Susan Weil. (Fig.1 [below] Robert Rauschenberg, Automobile Tire Print, 1953, paint on 20 sheets of paper mounted on fabric, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, purchase through a gift of by Phyllis C.Wattis)

tire print robert 1953

Figure 1: Robert Rauschenberg, Automobile Tire Print, 1953

The exhibitions starts with a black ink print of an automobile tire on 20 sheets of typewriter paper. The ink still seems fresh. Somehow you can still feel the noise of the car, as if the car was just around the corner waiting for you. It is a normal tire, made of rubber and petroleum, those very oil refined products he grew up with. This was the first step into Rauschenberg’s artistic statement: “I can make art from anything, the world was my canvas.”

 The following two works featured are somehow similar in their construction: there is no sign of a paintbrush or anything alike. On the one side, there is a black ink newspaper piece, where the relationship between the paintbrush and the canvas is avoided and where a viewer, you are confronted to yourself, your perception of this black ink space.

Related article: ‘A POEM BY ADAM CLAY’

On the other side, you face a dirty white page, mounted on a gold frame. This comes from one of Rauschenberg’s most famous performances that lasted for more than a month. “The whole idea, just came from my wanting to know whether a drawing could be made out of erasing,” said Rauschenberg, when he asked to the abstract expressionist Willem de Kooning for a drawing to erase. It took Rauschenberg a month, and about forty erasers, to complete the job. It was then exhibited in 1955, where Jasper Johns, Rauschenberg’s partner at the time, placed it in a gold frame with a typed inscription.

file7Those extraordinary pieces introduce us to Rauscheberg’s universe in his early years in New York. At the time, he worked with materials that he could find easily and blend. For example, he created a series of “Elemental Sculptures” using materials that he scavenged from his neighborhood.

From those first pieces, where he conceptually approaches materials, the viewer is suddenly plunged into the re-appropriation of those very external elements. I am hereby referring in particular to the ballet settings which he was in charge of creating as palcoscenico for John Cage and Merce Cunningham ‘Minutiae’, or the red multi-material red painting Charlene. Not to forget, the electric lamp lighting the red colored surface where an umbrella, and other lost and found objects are combined.

Figure 4: Robert Rauschenberg, Winter Pool

The white lamp on the dark red gives a rhythm to the viewer’s eyes. It plunges the public into an unexpected new interpretation of the cubist collages, a way of creating and combining objects that you would never usually link. The most spectacular combinations then come along.

‘Winter pool’, a wooden ladder welcomes the viewer to climb between colorful canvases. An escalation towards a new unknown creativity that the viewer will discover, and as a good movie, I will stop the report of my journey in order to leave each reader to inspire and discover Rauschenberg’s world in his own way.

Every viewer can decide to climb that ladder and enter the most unexpected way to analyze the combination between art and everyday challenges, materials, mechanisms and images.

( Fig. 4 [above]  Robert Rauschenberg,Winter Pool, 1959, oil paint, paper, fabric, wood, metal, sandpaper, tape, printed paper, printed reproductions, handheld bellows, and found painting on two canvases with ladder Jointly owned by A. Cohen and The Metropolitian Museum of Art)

Recommended reading: “DOOMOCRACY: THE END IS HERE“

EDITOR’S NOTE: THE OPINIONS EXPRESSED HERE BY IMPAKTER.COM COLUMNISTS ARE THEIR OWN, NOT THOSE OF IMPAKTER.COM.
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About the Author /

She holds a philosophy degree from Sorbonne in Paris and is now completing a joint art and philosophy course at the University of Florence and in Paris. Together with university, she is currently in the midst of publishing a book, which features inter alia the Italian art and architecture scene since the 1950s. Previously she has worked at the MAK Museum in Vienna as well as in various art galleries both from Paris and the U.S. She has also spent one year in Heidelberg focusing German philosophers from the 19th Century.

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The food industry is coming under increasing scrutiny for its environmental impact, from greenhouse gas emissions, to excessive and detrimental land and water usage, to chemical pollution. Given the challenge of feeding a growing world population whilst simultaneously needing to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental impacts, clearly we need to look at alternatives to “dinner as usual”. The contribution of livestock to global greenhouse emissions is estimated at between 14.5 – 18%. Fortunately, there are companies who are tackling this challenge head on and looking at how emissions from food production can be reduced. With consumer interest increasing in alternatives to meat and other protein sources, we’ve spoken to the founders of three companies. From the seemingly futuristic to the rediscovery of superfood trees, each company tackles this new drive in consumer interest in different ways.

Solar Foods, Finland

Dr Pasi Vainnika is the CEO and co-founder of Solar Foods. The slogan of the company is “Food out of thin air”. Pasi was formerly in charge of the single largest renewable energy program in Finland. However, when he found out that 20-25% of the emissions come from food, he realized that emissions from this sector needed to be addressed, as well as those in the energy sector. But with the growth in affordable and renewable energy – particularly solar energy– it led him and his team to question the possibility of producing food solely from energy, carbon dioxide, and water. It turns out, the answer is yes. Solein is a unique single cell protein. It is produced using a fully natural fermentation process like that of the production of yeast or lactic acid bacteria. The powder, which is produced from the process, is 50% protein, 5-10% fat and 20-25% carbohydrate. Most likely, the first product to reach the consumer market will be a replacement in existing plant-based foods. For example, using Solein in shakes or as an alternative to dairy in milks, yogurts, and even in breads and pasta. In the future, a lasagna could include the protein in all aspects of the recipe: the sauce, in the pasta sheets, and in the filling. Further into the future, there is also the possibility that it could be used as the basis for cultured meat production.
In the Photo: Solein Can be used in smoothies as a protein alternative. Photo Credit: Shawn Fields - Unsplash
To produce a kilo of the protein powder takes 10 liters of water in comparison to the 2500 liters of water for a kilo of soy or 15,500 liters for a kilo of beef. Electricity is the main raw material, and the plan is to source this from renewable energy sources. Additionally, Solein binds carbon dioxide rather than emitting it, easing pressure on land use. The product is currently going through regulatory checks and testing at the moment, with a plan to launch in 2021. NASA and the Soviet Union space programs had started to investigate in similar protein production for their expeditions in the past, but Solar Foods has brought it down to earth.

Higher Steaks, United Kingdom

Whilst some people are switching to plant-based diets and others have reduced their meat consumption, some others still want to keep meat in their diets but are looking for more environmentally friendly options. This is where lab-based meat comes in. Benjamina Bollag, CEO and co-founder of Higher Steaks, a UK-based company, believes that it is important to provide alternatives to meat with a lower carbon footprint, but that taste as close as possible to the real thing. She believes that the change required in human behavior to cut emissions will not happen fast enough otherwise. This approach is confirmed by research they have conducted. 52% of respondents confirmed that they would switch from conventional meat to the Higher Steaks alternative, with 21% saying they would prefer a plant-based diet. There are different ways of producing lab-based meat. The process that Higher Steaks is developing is based on pluripotent stem cells, which are taken from a small skin patch or blood sample. The meat that is grown is then shaped into products. Currently, Higher Steaks is working primarily on pork products.
In Photo: Higher Steaks will eventually release pork as its first lab-cultured meat. Photo Credit: Yvonne Lee Harijanto - Unsplash
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Barukas, Brazil

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In Photo: Baruzeiro tree. Photo Credit: Barukas
Tuckerman became a co-founder of Barukas Incorporated. They are on a mission to plant 20 million baruzeiro trees – as a start. The trees need little water and – as native trees – they are already ideally suited to the Cerrado conditions. First, Barukas must prove that there is a market for the fruit of the existing trees. As such, the company is encouraging those living in the Cerrado to collect the nuts by guaranteeing to buy them, then creating customer demand for the nuts. Collecting the fruit from existing trees helps to preserve them from being cleared for intensive and invasive agricultural methods such as soy plantations. Likewise, planting new trees helps to reverse the deforestation of Cerrado. A report by the Climate Observatory estimated that the destruction of surface vegetation in the Cerrado released 248 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions in 2016. This is roughly two-and-half times the annual tailpipe emissions from all cars in Brazil.
In Photo: Closer look at the baruzeiro tree. Photo Credit: Barukas.
From talking with these three pioneers, it is now clearer than ever that we need multiple solutions to address how to sustainably feed a growing population. We need to cut the carbon emissions and reduce other environmental impacts such as water and land use associated with food production. Some of these solutions are a little way off in the future, but others are available now. We are what we eat, but our choices will increasingly determine what kind of future we will live in as well.   EDITOR’S NOTE: The opinions expressed here by Impakter.com columnists are their own, not those of Impakter.com.
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