Robert Rauschenberg

Eclectic exhibition at Tate Modern looking at the life and work of Robert Rauschenberg.

I must admit I went to this show with a certain amount of trepidation as I’m not that keen on conceptual art but I loved it! The whole thing had more of a sense of humour than I expected. There were works that if you saw new work like this now would look clichéd but because Rauschenberg was one of the first to do this sort of work it felt fresh and exciting.

Rauschenberg had been involved in a lot of performance art and is often hard to reproduce this n a gallery setting but this show had excellent videos of the dance work and a good section of photographs and programmes shown alongside an interactive sculpture called Oracle which incorporated the sound of radios and running water.

My favourite pieces were the stuffed goat! Who can resist a stuffed goat in a rubber tyre! The commentary said he had found the goat in a second hand show and wanted to restore its dignity. I’m not sure the rubber tyre does that but there is a real sense of fun. I also loved “Mud Muse” a great vat of a mud like material with air bubbles running up to the surface. I liked the fact it was a complex set up for a simple visual. It looked like an animated monochrome painting. I could have watched it for hours.

Closes on 2 April 2017

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