Signs - 1970

Over the weekend I went to see the exhibit “Signs of the Times – Robert Rauschenberg’s America” at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art in Madison, Wisconsin. It runs through January 3, 2010 and the admission is FREE!! This is a great show, I would highly recommend it, especially at this price!

We studied Rauschenberg in my History of Photography class just last week, and so I jumped at the chance to see this show when I noticed it while perusing the local paper while in Madison for Thanksgiving. He is noted for his “combines” – works that are combinations of photographs, painting and other everyday objects. He became became known in the 1950′s and particularly in the 60′s and 70′s. He died in 2008.

  This exhibit focused on three of his series – Reels (B+C), which was based on the 1967 movie Bonnie and Clyde starring Warren Beatty and Fay Dunaway. The second is the Surface Series (from Currents). This series of eighteen prints was made from the original Currents series, with each print comprised of three of the Current prints superimposed. All of the prints are articles and pages from newspapers he found in a three month period in the spring of 1970.

 The majority of the show was given over to his Stoned Moon Series, which I found to be by far the most impressive. In 1969 Rauschenberg was invited by NASA to view the launch of the Apollo 11 mission – the first to walk on the moon. He completed the 34 prints on display in about a month, which is hard to believe. These prints conveyed the awe of our mission to the moon by combining his own photographs, other images and drawings and charts from NASA. 

There were also a few random prints as well as a 30 minute movie he did in the mid-60′s. The title of the exhibit comes from one of these – Signs, which was produced in 1970 and is the perfect portrail of America in the 1960′s ]]> http://www.rusticroadsphotography.com/archives/571/feed 0