Robert Rauschenberg

(1925-2008)

Intersection (Copperhead)
1989

Footnotes

This work is registered in the archives of the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, New York, under RRF 89.46.

Provenance
M. Knoedler & Co., New York (A 116778)
Private Collection, London
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner

Exhibited
New York, M. Knoedler & Co., Robert Rauschenberg: Works, 1989, no. 13, illustrated in colour



With its lustrous, subtly reflective copper surface and vivid blend of silkscreened and painted imagery, Intersection (Copperhead) from 1989 is a truly spectacular example from a celebrated series of paintings on metal created during Robert Rauschenberg's ROCI project. Over the course of his 60-year career, Rauschenberg worked in a wide range media including painting, sculpture, fabric collage, printmaking, photography and performance, challenging gestural abstract painting at a time where Abstract Expressionism was the dominant creative philosophy in America. Studying at the famed Black Mountain College under the tutelage of Josef Albers, he quickly rose to be one of the most influential and experimental artists of his time, a progenitor of practically every post-war artistic development since Abstract Expressionism and the first American to win the Golden Lion, the top prize at the Venice Biennale in 1964. Today, his works are highly sought after internationally, and with only two comparable works having been offered at auction in the past ten years, this is a rare opportunity to acquire a signature work by this singular artist.

Robert Rauschenberg believed in the power of art as a catalyst for positive social change. He travelled widely throughout his life, participating in numerous international ventures and from 1984 to 1991 he embarked on the ROCI project, the Rauschenberg Overseas Culture Interchange (ROCI) - pronounced "Rocky," like the name of his pet turtle. The project was an expression of his long-term commitment to human rights and intended to spark a dialogue and achieve mutual understanding through creative work. As part of the project, Rauschenberg explored diverse cultures and local art-making practices, steering him to countries where artistic experimentation had been suppressed, including Chile, China and Cuba.

On his trip to Chile in 1984 Rauschenberg visited a copper mine and foundry and learned from artist Benito Rojo about the potential of tarnishing agents on copper. Mined locally and widely exported around the world, the material was not only of huge significance to the country, but by using it, Rauschenberg demonstrated his solidarity with the Chilean people during the rule of Dictator, President Augusto Pinochet. It also possessed warm reflective qualities that he liked for his own practice, explaining that, "the metal carries the image instead of the opposite way around, where the paint is the image on the surface." (the artist in: Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac press release, BOREALIS 1988-92, www.ropac.net, 21 September 2021)
The Copperheads (1985/89) are a series of paintings using copper supports, tarnishing agents, acrylic, enamel and silkscreened photographs taken by the artist on his travels. Photography and printmaking were two of his abiding interests, allowing him to document and reflect the countries he visited and the world around him. While the fourteen Copperheads made in 1985 are part of the larger series ROCI Chile, the present work belongs to the first of fifteen series of paintings on metal that Rauschenberg made between 1985 and 1996.

With the addition of hand painted enamel, Intersection (Copperhead) is a melange of textures and shadow play, first captured in Rauschenberg's black and-white photographs and then transformed into graphic signs and bursts of colour on the copper surface. A painting that is suffused with the politics of the emergent globalization at the end of the 1980s, it wonderfully demonstrates the artist's adroitness and keen eye for imagery in modern media culture; how they could be propagated, transformed and composed.
Set over a both lustrous and murky copper background, the eye is drawn upwards across the vertical pane to find a selection of five distinct images, each assigned a colour or colour combination. Some are more readily recognizable than others: the wheel of a bike for example is centrally positioned between stark letters at the top of the composition. Three small men are encased by the lamp of a traffic light, an image that was photographed in Chile and is clearly referenced in the work's title 'Intersection'. At the base, a yellow chair against a vibrant red background is serenely positioned between two windows and beautifully grounds the composition.

Rauschenberg took the photograph of the bike and letters in Moscow; the image of the chair at the bottom of the composition was taken in either Captiva, Florida or the neighbouring Pine Island, near Rauschenberg's studio. Besides the reference to the prominently positioned traffic light, the title of the work also draws attention to the various layers of apparently unrelated imagery intersecting across the picture plane and the juxtaposition between two different modes of paint application: gestural brushstrokes and mechanically reproduced imagery. No specific narrative can be inferred from the figurative motifs and in some areas the imagery is dense, even overlapping, in others it is sparser, leaving part of the copper base bare, only broken up by incidental gestures, including wipes and drips, streaks, washes and spots.

Rauschenberg didn't want his paintings to be didactic; rather they are a collection of motifs that lead the viewer on their own journey, and are subject to the viewer's own thoughts, perceptions, and feelings. The present work is a truly magnificent example of some of the artists most recognizable techniques with an imposing and striking presence. Rauschenberg's impact on art history is still felt strongly today, with his works being incredibly popular and amongst the highlights of the most prestigious public and private collections around the globe, including the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Guggenheim Bilbao, Bilbao; Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and New York's Museum of Modern Art.