Robert Rauschenberg – Hollywood Sphinx – Illegal Tender L.A.

Description

Robert Rauschenberg, Hollywood Sphinx, from the Illegal Tender L.A. series, is an original Lithograph in colors on HMP Koller handmade paper made in 1991. This print Hollywood Sphinx – Illegal Tender L.A. is from the signed, dated and numbered edition of 58. Published by Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles.

Considered by many to be one of the most influential American artists due to his radical blending of materials and methods, Robert Rauschenberg was a crucial figure in the transition from Abstract Expressionism to later modern movements. One of the key Neo-Dada movement artists, his experimental approach expanded the traditional boundaries of art, opening up avenues of exploration for future artists. Although Rauschenberg was the enfant terrible of the art world in the 1950s, he was deeply respected and admired by his predecessors. Despite this admiration, he disagreed with many of their convictions and literally erased their precedent to move forward into new aesthetic territory that reiterated the earlier Dada inquiry into the definition of art.

Often described as the first postmodern artist, Robert Rauschenberg was a protean innovator whose work in painting, photography, sculpture, performance, and printmaking helped establish the ongoing concerns of contemporary art. SFMOMA’s extensive holdings of works by the artist serve as an anchor for the museum’s ongoing exploration of postwar art and are the subject of a special compendium of research, the Rauschenberg Research Project.

With his move to Captiva Island, Rauschenberg expanded his studio’s specialized capabilities and support system of assistants and technical collaborators, building an environment that fed his appetite for experimentation. Areas dedicated to lithography, metalworking, painting, silkscreening, and eventually, digital printing were built during the 1970s and 1980s, giving him free reign to pursue a vast range of media and processes. He continued to mix art materials and disciplines in provocative ways, with an increasingly global frame of reference. His intense engagement with cultural and social issues led him to organize the Rauschenberg Overseas Culture Interchange from 1984 to 1991, an unprecedented project that took him to countries such as Tibet, Cuba, and China and sought to create social connections and bridge political differences.

The staggering breadth and diversity of Rauschenberg’s oeuvre make it difficult to summarize. His work has been described variously as a precursor to Pop art, Minimalism, process art, Conceptualism, and performance, testifying to the revolutionary effects that his cross-disciplinary and iconoclastic approach had on the field of American art in the postwar period.

Robert Rauschenberg, Hollywood Sphinx – Illegal Tender L.A.

Rauschenberg Art For Sale