Pace Gallery is celebrating what would be the 90th birthday of the late Robert Rauschenberg, whose foundation the gallery has represented since last spring, with an exhibition at its 534 West 25th Street New York space opening on Friday, 23 October.
Robert Rauschenberg: Anagrams, Arcadian Retreats, Anagrams (A Pun) has around 25 pieces from these later series (1996-98), which include inkjet dye and pigment transfers on polylaminate, paper and fabric supports, as well as frescoes. Christy MacLear, the director of the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, describes the pieces as colourful, with “a painterly quality”. Rauschenberg “was curious and voracious in his attempt to constantly try new materials and new techniques,” she says. Archival video footage of the artist working during this late period will also be shown in the gallery.
Most of the works on show, around 20, belong to the foundation, and are on sale to support its operation and activities, including its residency programme. The remaining works, including all of the frescoes, are on loan from private collectors and the Whitney Museum and are not for sale. “I love the frescoes—you don’t get to see [them] very often,” says Pace’s president Marc Glimcher.
Glimcher recalls that Rauschenberg would often say “Sorry, that’s a keeper” to his father Arne Glimcher, who founded Pace, and hold onto works Arne wanted to show at the gallery. “These are the keepers,” he says of the works in this exhibition.
Born on 22 October, 1925 the artist died at his home on Captiva Island on 12 May 2008, aged 82. Like many other artists of his generation, he was able to attend art school through the GI Bill, and studied in Paris and the Black Mountain College in North Carolina.
• Robert Rauschenberg: Anagrams, Arcadian Retreats, Anagrams (A Pun), Pace Gallery, 534 West 25th Street, New York, 23 October-12 December