Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Πέθανε ο ζωγράφος Ρόμπερτ Ράουσεμπεργκ [1925 - 2008]

Robert Rauschenberg

O Robert Rauschenberg, ένας από τους πρωτοπόρους της pop art, σε μια φωτογραφία του 1996.

Ο Ρόμπερτ Ράουσεμπεργκ, ένας από τους σημαντικότερους Αμερικανούς καλλιτέχνες του 20ου αιώνα, πέθανε χθες το βράδυ, ανακοίνωσε στο Γαλλικό Πρακτορείο η Τζένιφερ Ρόι, εκπρόσωπος της Γκαλερί Pace Wildenstein της Νέας Υόρκης.

Ο ζωγράφος που ήταν 82 ετών είχε γεννηθεί στο Τέξας το 1925, και πέθανε στο Κάπτιβ Αϊλαντ στη Φλόριντα, όπου κατοικούσε, διευκρίνισε η κυρία Ρόι. Ζωγράφος, γλύπτης, χορογράφος, φωτογράφος και ακόμη και συνθέτης, ο Ρόμπερτ Ράουσεμπεργκ,έγινε διάσημος στη δεκαετία του 50 και είναι ένας από τους πλέον ακριβοπληρωμένους αμερικανούς καλλιτέχνες.

Τρία έργα του Ράουσεμπεργκ βγαίνουν προς πώληση σήμερα Τετάρτη το βράδυ στην ανοιξιάτική δημοπρασία του οίκου Sotheby's. Το ένα από αυτά με τίτλο «Overdrive», εκτιμάται από 10 έως 15 εκατομμύρια δολάρια στον κατάλογο, που είχε εκδοθεί πριν από τον θάνατο του καλλιτέχνη.

Robert Rauschenberg, 82; influential artist mixed painting, sculpture and cast-off items

His ‘combines,’ which incorporated objects such as tires, newspaper clippings and stuffed animals, established new directions and prominence for American art.

By Christopher Knight, Los Angeles Times Art Critic, May 13, 2008
Robert Rauschenberg, the protean artist from small-town Texas whose imaginative commitment to hybrid forms of painting and sculpture changed the course of American and European art between 1950 and the early 1970s, died Monday night, according to New York's PaceWildenstein Gallery, which represents his work. He was 82.

According to the gallery, Rauschenberg died of heart failure at his home in Captiva, Fla., after a brief illness.

Rauschenberg was widely regarded as a principal bridge between Abstract Expressionism in the 1950s and Pop art in the 1960s, but he did not subscribe to any narrow doctrine. His work also influenced the emergence of Neo-Dada, Minimal, Conceptual, Post-minimal, Process and performance art. His deep and abiding interest in printmaking facilitated a major revival in the medium, and his achievements in lithography were instrumental in the creation of a contemporary market for prints. In Europe, the humble, everyday objects of the Arte Povera ("poor art") movement expanded on his use of cast-off materials retrieved from the trash bin and the attic.

Rauschenberg's art was instrumental in reintroducing representational imagery into common usage. Until then, avant-garde art on both sides of the Atlantic was most closely identified with pure abstraction, which the general public regarded with skepticism. Rauschenberg mixed traditional forms of modern painting and sculpture with photographs, found objects, studio printmaking techniques and mass-produced pictures gathered in postcards, postage stamps and newspapers. In one of the most often repeated, yet frequently misquoted statements in postwar American art, he asserted: "Painting relates to both art and life. . . . (I try to act in that gap between the two).
"Together with painter Jasper Johns, with whom he was romantically linked, Rauschenberg was the most important American artist to emerge into prominence in the 1950s. When he was awarded the grand prize for painting at the 1964 Venice Biennale in Italy -- only the third American to receive the distinguished honor, after James Whistler and Mark Tobey -- the surprise selection ignited a firestorm of controversy in Europe but secured his international reputation. Rauschenberg had been using commercially made silk screens to reproduce photographic images on his canvases, a technique that he picked up from Andy Warhol, and the imagery mingled with energetic brushwork in brilliant colors. The day after the Venice Biennale announcement, he had all the silk screens in his New York studio destroyed, to forestall any temptation to repeat himself... [article continues]

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