1: Rauschenberg's best
These works have a special place in Rauschenberg's oeuvre, taking his marriage of art and life to the extreme. They are profoundly literal, and to my mind, the most audacious things he's ever done. Here it is. If you want art in the modern world, if you want to see beauty in the world around you, take a cardboard box and put it on the wall. That's it. Funny how his imagination then drove him to elaborate on this theme, from simple compositions to complex phrasings in cardboard boxes, to the extremes of trompe l'oeil, flourescent back-lighting, and other technically refined means, all to explore the basic premise: beauty is all around us, even in our cast-offs. And what we think of as disposable says a lot about our priorities. The superb essays in this book do their job of illuminating the art without smothering it in analysis. The works speak for themselves. I wish I could have seen the exhibition at Menil, though I did get to see many of these pieces at Sonnabend Gallery in NYC in the early 90s. This is a great book for the lover of modern art, but also anyone who's ever spent quality time staring in rapt adoration at an oily mud puddle or a pile of raked leaves. Essential!!!
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