A visiting friend provided a great excuse to check out Robert Rauschenberg's "The 1/4 Mile or 2 Furlongs" at LACMA. Rauschenberg was a renowned late 20th century American artist whose work was exemplified by assemblage of photographs, printed matter, and found objects, combined with overpainting. "The 1/4 Mile or 2 Furlongs" is a single work comprising 190 panels, plus some sculptural objects and some audio tracks, which if laid out linearly would actually be almost 1/4 mile long. The work grew over the course of 17 years (1981-1998) and is kind of a self-contained retrospective of the artist's career, with references to many of his other major works and showing an evolution of styles and phases, a creative array of visual stimulation running the gamut from murky to boldly colorful, and from purely abstract geometrics to human and natural forms. It was intriguing to contemplate the variety of colors and forms in the various panels and other bits and pieces, and also intriguing to think of it as one huge work rather than 200 individual works, and just how that makes you view it differently. I found myself thinking more about order, relationship, and juxtaposition as we wandered through it.
No comments:
Post a Comment