Surface Series from Currents

1970

Robert Rauschenberg

(American, 1925–2008)

published by

Dayton's Gallery 12 and Castelli Graphics

Culture

America

Medium

screenprint

Support

Aqua B 844 paper

Measurements

Sheet: 111.6 x 111.6 cm (43 15/16 x 43 15/16 in.); Image: 89 x 89 cm (35 1/16 x 35 1/16 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of Joseph and Lucy Russell 2011.109

Catalogue raisonné

Foster 152, no. 115

Impression

printer's proof 1

This artwork is known to be under copyright.

Location

Not on view

Description

Robert Rauschenberg questioned the relationship of art and the news in a moment of great social and political change. He collaged headlines and images from mainstream and counterculture newspapers published in early 1970. This jumble of scraps evokes the artist’s studio tabletop or a newspaper designer’s light table. To make the final printing plate, Rauschenberg manually cut and pasted different elements together (in the form of photographic negatives), visually presenting the tension between art and the news where the photographs overlap. The gridded arrangement of the halftone dots conflict and create an optical effect known as moiré pattern.