Robert Rauschenberg
A museum in Milan dedicated mainly to modern Italian art is hosting an exhibition dedicated to someone unexpected: the American artist Robert Rauschenberg.
The Museo del Novecento may not be at the top of many people’s lists of Milan’s museums and cultural centers. Da Vinci’s Last Supper, the Pinacoteca di Brera, and the Palazzo Reale may be more popular venues. The Museo del Novecento, however, occupies a central location in the city, just off the Piazza del Duomo. It’s also a rather new museum, first opening in 2010. While twentieth-century art is the main focus, it specializes in modern Italian art, particularly the early twentieth-century Futurists. Starting last week, the museum has been operating a new exhibition dedicated not to a European artist but to an incredibly influential American artist.
With the help of the Milan municipality’s cultural directorate and the organization Arte Totale, the museum opened the exhibition Rauschenberg and the Twentieth Century on April 5th to pay homage to the artist on the year of his hundredth birthday. The show is mainly organized by miart, the Milan International Modern and Contemporary Art Fair. The exhibition is part of their twenty-ninth edition, which is dedicated to Rauschenberg and what the organizers call his “insatiable curiosity and a deep commitment to collaboration and exchange of ideas”. Robert Rauschenberg made use of several different styles and trends throughout his career. He is often associated with twentieth-century abstract expressionism, but he also made a name for himself through other styles like neo-Dada and pop art. He is usually considered a predecessor of postmodern and contemporary art. His use of everyday objects and images from popular culture echoes the work of Marcel Duchamp while heralding the advent of Maurizio Cattelan. And in a way, that is the essence of the exhibition. The museum is attempting to look at how Rauschenberg and his work are part of a dialogue between earlier European artists while also connecting them to later artistic impulses.
The Museo del Novecento presents several major works by Rauschenberg alongside works from the museum’s collection. The Futurists pieces that offer commentary on modernity are placed alongside Rauschenberg works, like his Gluts series, which uses salvaged scrap metal from cars and old signs from gas stations. Able Was I Ere I Saw Elba is part of the artist’s series reinterpreting popular Western paintings on large ceramic panels. This one uses Jacques-Louis David’s Napoleon Crossing the Alps as its focus. The museum has decided to place it in the gallery alongside Arturo Martini’s sculpture I morti di Bligny trasalirebbero, the title of which comes from a speech Mussolini gave commenting on the strained relationship between Italy and France. Later on, museum visitors see some more contemporary art, like the conceptual works of Giulio Paolini. Curators place them beside examples from Rauschenberg’s Hoarfrost series of draped silkscreen prints, linking the artist to Italian art movements like Arte Povera. And finally, the Museo del Novecento highlights one of Rauschenberg’s final projects, the Rauschenberg Overseas Cultural Interchange (ROCI). This was an initiative to expedite artistic and cultural exchange that the artist founded in 1984. To represent this chapter in Rauschenberg’s life, the museum displays the 1985 work Onoto Snare / ROCI Venezuela. According to the museum, the work, made from a combination of images and found objects, represents the artist’s spirit of collaboration, the main theme of this year’s miart show.
Rauschenberg and the Twentieth Century will run at the Museo del Novecento through June 29th.