The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 18, 2024

Surface Series from Currents

Surface Series from Currents

1970
(American, 1925–2008)
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.)
© Robert Rauschenberg Foundation / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY
Catalogue raisonné: Foster 152, no. 115
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.
  • Photographs in Ink. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 20, 2022-April 2, 2023).
  • {{cite web|title=Surface Series from Currents|url=false|author=Robert Rauschenberg, Dayton's Gallery 12 and Castelli Graphics|year=1970|access-date=18 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2011.109