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DEAD! at 82Robert Rauschenberg

Reflex I
Artist: Robert Rauschenberg
(American, 1925 – 2008)
Oil on canvas
1963

The Wadsworth Atheneum
Hartford (Connecticut)

Robert Rauschenberg was one of the first pillar-war American artists to reintroduce of the people imagery into contemporaneous art. In 1962, Rauschenberg began to lay upon "found" media images (from The breath of life, National Geographic and other picture magazines) to canvas, using commercially prepared photographic silk screens. Reflex I is widely considered one of the finest of Rauschenberg's silkscreen paintings, and reflects the contriver's ongoing interest in the stray connectedness of not new scenes and objects. Here, as in much of Rauschenberg's be in action, seemingly absurd images are juxtaposed to bring into being a loosely thematic vignette that evokes the complication and richness of the universe around us. Viewed together the conversant images of President John F. Kennedy, Sunkist oranges, and an American astronaut floating in extension evoke the luck and optimism of 1960s America. Central to the operate is an iconic representation of the attractive youthful president, a emblem of progress and word. Nothing, however, can separate the cogency of this image from its typical reading as the embodying see the verb of a national tragedy.

Source: OrangeMercury

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National Geographic 1962 News

National Geographic Directory