Robert Rauschenberg, Palladian Xmas (Spread) (1980), via Ropac

Over the course of his career, Robert Rauschenberg occupied an almost innumerable series of critical and theoretical positions in the practice and production of art objects, often bounding from material to material and technique to technique in bounds that often moved beyond the scope of any single artists entire oeuvre.  His relentless interest in particular with the picture plane itself, and its capacity for interruption or disruption through the inclusion of ready-made objects, collaged pieces and even the scraps of other paintings, Rauschenberg produced what could best be considered as a career in a constant state of flux caused by its own movements.
Robert Rauschenberg, Rodeo Palace (Spread) (1976), via Rauschenberg Foundation

This winter, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac in London is presenting the artist’s iconic Spreads series, reflecting on the artist’s work pioneering new ways of painterly construction while remaining focused on his own painterly language.  The large-scale Spreads encapsulate many of Robert Rauschenberg’s best-known motifs and materials, and the twelve works from the series―the largest of which stretches to over six metres wide are presented alongside a series of paper collages from the same era.  In the Spreads the artist’s familiar motifs from his object-laden Combines is reprised, incorporating car tires, doors, bedding and other materials in conjunction with fabric materials and canvas, all conspiring to create a dense, multilayered series of materials that challenges and reframes the canvas as a collecting pool for both materials and ideas, reference systems and the objects that contain them, all negotiating within the canvas as one potential conclusion of the project of the 20th Century avant-garde.
Robert Rauschenberg, Rumor (Spread) (1980), via Ropac

Rauschenberg himself was well aware of these conversations of object and image, referring to the “Spreads” as both a negotiation of history and “something you put on toast.”  The language of his materials laid across the canvas negotiate with their mode of presentation, ultimately creating even more dense linguistic networks alongside the concepts explored within the works themselves.  Rather than a purely retrospective exercise, the development of his Spreads is also suggestive of a more complex relationship between past and present, integrating not only elements from his earlier work but also reflecting changes in his life, his practice and in contemporary art at the time. Rauschenberg’s use of fabric color blocks in his Spreads not only represented a shift in his color palette from the urban experience of New York to the bright oranges, pinks and yellows of life in Florida, but also engaged with recent artistic developments such as Color Field painting and Minimalism, incorporating references to a new generation of artists.

Robert Rauschenberg, Spreads 1975-1983 (Installation View), via Ropac

This series of works, a vast trove of historical touchstones and concepts united by Rauschenberg’s hand, makes for a striking investigation of the artists’s work, and his vantage point from the vanguard of 20th Century art.

The show closes Janaury 26th.

— D. Creahan

Read more:
Thaddaeus Ropac [Exhibition Site]

The Guardian profiles a recent project by artist Emma Stibbon, whose work documents the results of climate change on landscapes previously depicted by famed landscape artists like JMW Turner. “When we think of the Alps,” she says, “we think of iconic white peaks. By the end of this century, there probably won’t be any snow.” (more…)

A protest in Paris by the Yellow Vests group led the Musée d’Orsay to close early on Saturday, Art News reports. The closures were caused by fierce clashes between protestors and police, which threatened passerby and visitors to the museum. (more…)

The Stedelijk Museum has issued a cryptic statement that it had come to an agreement with former director Beatrix Ruf “to leave the past behind.” Ruf will not return to her position, but “may however, be invited to be involved in a specific exhibition or in other museum projects, under the responsibility of a future, as yet unappointed, artistic director.” (more…)

Fashion and art collective Vaquera has been tapped by MoMA PS1 for one of its Sunday Sessions this year in Queens. “When MoMA asked us to do a Sunday Session, we were excited to do something new that would allow us to collaborate with a large group of non-fashion creatives. A free-form play seemed perfect,” the group said in a statement. (more…)

rchThe Guardian looks at the growing field of “research architecture,” and how its practitioners are redefining the line between art and architectural practice. “There’s this idea of really working as detectives,” says Lorenzo Pezzani, a professor at Goldsmith College’s Centre for Forensic Architecture.  (more…)

Bridget Riley, Quiver 3 (2014), via Spruth Magers

Comprising work made between 1960 and the present, Bridget Riley: Painting Now at Sprüth Magers LA surveys the development of the British artist’s career-long exploration of looking and seeing in relation to the capacities of painting and picture making. Her work, consisting of tightly-interlocked bands of color and explorations of the potential for relief and tension in the presentation of visual stimuli, is presented here in its development of optically-elusive, challenging pieces, ones that make the viewer acutely aware of the act of looking. (more…)

Julia Scher, Wonderland (Installation View), via Esther Schipper

In 1998, artist Julia Scher installed her work Wonderland in New York. Immersing the galley in a theatrical pink and purple light, Scher’s Wonderland is a multimedia environment where visitors are welcomed by the sound of the artist’s authoritative yet soothing voice: ‘Attention. There are live cameras here in Wonderland, recording you… Warning. Your size may change, here in Wonderland. Thank you for coming!’ This hint at the concepts of surveillance, of the reproduction of reality, and of the deconstruction of space and time feel particularly resonant in a new century, and underscore the cutting-edge nature of Scher’s work.

Julia Scher, Wonderland (Installation View), via Esther Schipper

Julia Scher, Wonderland (Installation View), via Esther Schipper

Scher’s work comes on the heels of a recent revival in interest around her work, and a performance of one of her ongoing works, ‘Security by Julia’ at Frieze this year. The Security By Julia series, which began in 1988, uses public space to question the invasion of personal freedom within the public realm, using the tools of the electronic age to critically engage it, specifically a recurring use of security cameras. Here, her reprised work follows a similar logic, provoking questions on the state, its presence in everyday life, and ways of living beside, or outside of it.

Julia Scher, Wonderland (Installation View), via Esther Schipper

At the center of the space are two semi-circular child-sized desks arrayed with complex technical equipment and cabling, vintage computer monitors with live surveillance footage, various ephemera—such as bags of White Rabbit Creamy Candy—and Scher’s signature pink guard caps. Alluding to prior works and dense multi-media narratives, the artist’s selections of objects form a central nervous system of sorts, a series of narrative elements conspiring in their reproduction and reframing of the reality of the gallery space. Referencing both psychedelics and classic literature, as well as her own work, Scher’s pieces here invite a meditation on youth and media. On the walls, complementing the central assemblage of technological apparatuses, large-scale prints depict children, among them American actress and director Lena Dunham aged 10, dressed in the same pink uniforms and caps that are neatly folded on the desks.

Julia Scher, Wonderland (Installation View), via Esther Schipper

Julia Scher, Wonderland (Installation View), via Esther Schipper

Posed here, the artist’s work mirrors the subversions of role-play and power, yet the inclusion of these same images are notable in turn for their place in the gallery today. It’s worth considering that the millennial models used for this piece have now grown into a place of power in the world. Dunham in particular is now a vastly successful writer and filmmaker in her own right. Scher’s work, presented in its new state, is perhaps an even more potent reflection at this point, not only suggesting the distended sense of reality caused by the exercise of state power, but perhaps more notably, the surreal nature of a new generation taking up these weapons, and eventually growing into their own place of power in the world.

The show closes February 9th.

— D. Creahan

Read more:
Julia Scher: Wonderland [Exhibition Site]

The increasing attention to African-American modernism has led to increased efforts at counterfeiting the work of artists like Romare Bearden, Alma Thomas and more. “It’s a whole generation: you could go from A to Z through the list, from Charles Alston to Charles White. I am seeing fakes attributed to all of them,” dealer Michael Rosenfeld says.“You simply can’t go back to the source any more, and there is only a handful of people who worked first-hand with a lot of these artists while they were alive,” he says.  (more…)

Christie’s will sell a series of works from the collection of dealer Richard L. Feigen this spring, Art Newspaper reports. Many of the works are expected to achieve record prices for the artists on sale. “Feigen has made countless and startling discoveries throughout his career and continues to champion the field of Old Masters,” says Francois de Poortere, head of Christie’s Old Masters department. “It is an honor to be offering several of his most cherished paintings.” (more…)

Hirshhorn Museum Board Chair Daniel Sallick has commented on the closure of the Smithsonian during the shutdown as a look at a “life without some of our essential culture.” “The lesson we kept returning to at the end of the day is that the public wants and needs our government to work,” he says.  “And that applies no less to government-sponsored cultural institutions.” (more…)

The 60-foot tall demon statue centerpiece from Damien Hirst’s Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable has been sold to the Palms Casino, Art News reports. While the sale price was not disclosed, the piece’s price tag in Venice was $14 million.  (more…)

David Ostrowski, The Thin Red Line (Installation view), courtesy Sprüth Magers, Photography: Voytek Ketz, London & postproduction by Hans-Georg Gaul, Berlin

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The settlement of a lawsuit over the paintings of filmmaker and artist Derek Jarman has cleared the way for a major retrospective at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) in Dublin in November. “We don’t know Derek Jarman the painter, but that was his primary practice,” says Sean Kissane, the curator at IMMA.  (more…)

Phillips is planning to add a selling exhibition of African American artists to its calendar this winter, featuring work by Fred Wilson and Kehinde Wiley, among others.  “It gives proper recognition to these extraordinary artists of the mid-20th and early 21st centuries alongside their contemporaries,” says Arnold Lehman. (more…)

Lauren Wittels has been named a partner at Luhring Augustine, promoted up from her position as the gallery’s senior director. “Lauren’s contribution to the gallery program and her dedication to the artists and clients of the gallery certainly warrants such well-deserved recognition, and we congratulate her and look forward to many more fruitful years of collaboration,” says Roland Augustine, a co-owner of the gallery.  (more…)

Artist Nicola L., known for her feminist practice in sculpture, videos, and performances, has passed away at the age of 81.  Curator Ruba Katrib confirmed her passing.  “Nicola was dedicated to art and politics, never concerned with prescriptive modes of making,” Katrib said. “She embedded her singular vision into hybrid-forms of sculpture, painting, clothing, performance, furniture, and early interactive pieces, while also making films and writing plays.” (more…)

The Louvre has shattered all ticket office records last year with more than 10 million people viewing its collection, the result of foreign tourists and an added bump in visits following the release of a Beyoncé music video filmed at the museum.  (more…)

The Chinese nation’s persecution of its Uyghur peoples has led to a number of artists being imprisoned.  “So many have been taken away,” says Tahir Hamut, a Uyghur poet and film-maker who escaped to the US. “Most of the more famous cultural figures have all been arrested. Their families won’t say for certain, because their families are afraid.” (more…)

The latest victim of the US Government shutdown, the National Gallery of Art has shuttered, one day after the Smithsonian network of musuems, which includes the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden closed due to lack of funds. (more…)

Darren Almond, Time will Tell (Installation View), via White Cube

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The Municipality of Amsterdam has appointed four new supervisors to the board of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, including Carla Aalse, Henriëtte Prast, Maarten Doorman, and Homme ten Have. “In the best interests of the museum, it is time to bring the recent turmoil to an end and start afresh,” interim board chair Madeleine de Cock Buning and Jos van Rooijen said in a letter, referring to the departure of former director Beatrix Ruf.  (more…)

A long-running legal battle in France over artist resale royalties has been decided in favor of Christie’s efforts to shift responsibility for payments to the buyer, after the Supreme Court allowed the auction house to charge the buyer of paintings at auction for the royalty rates.  “The Cour de Cassation handed down its decision on 9 November 2018 regarding the SNA case,” says a Christie’s spokesperson. “It agrees with the Christie’s France reasoning and overturns the judgments of the Court of Appeal of Versailles in this case.”  (more…)

The New York Times has a piece on the collection of Harlan and Olivia Fischer, which focuses heavily on the use of glass in sculpture. “When Olivia and I started collecting glass, the feeling was similar to how I felt in high school when I discovered jazz,” Harlan says. (more…)