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SIGNS OF LIFE: Robert Rauschenberg Posters |
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From the collection of Mary Lynn Kotz
May 25 – September 8, 2007
Opening Reception
Friday, May 25th, 6:00-8:00 p.m.
Admission: Free for BMCM+AC members / $3 non-members
Full Related Event Listing
I think that in the last twenty years or so, there's been a new kind of honesty in painting where painters have been very proud of paint and have let it behave openly…Robert Rauschenberg
The Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center is pleased to announce its upcoming exhibition, SIGNS OF LIFE: Robert Rauschenberg Posters, opening on Friday, May 25 from 6:00 – 8:00 p.m. The show consists of nearly two dozen posters collected over the past three decades by noted Rauschenberg scholar and author Mary Lynn Kotz (RAUSCHENBERG: Art and Life). The posters represent a broad range of exhibitions and projects, including the artist’s celebrated ROCI (Rauschenberg Overseas Cultural Interchange) project of the 1980s. Viewed as a whole, the posters provide a fascinating overview of this prolific artist’s work and interests over the past three and a half decades.
Robert Rauschenberg was born in Port Arthur, Texas in 1925. He was considering a career as a pharmacist when he joined the Marines, but in the Marine Corps he discovered that he could draw and developed an interest in representing ordinary objects and people. This interest was to change the face of contemporary art.
After WWII Robert Rauschenberg was in Paris where he met another American student named Sue Weil, whom he later married. Weil was already enrolled at Black Mountain College for the 1948 term, and Rauschenberg decided to use the GI Bill to enroll also. He attended Black Mountain College sporadically between 1948 and 1952. Other students enrolled during those years included Cy Twombly, Dorothea Rockburne and Ray Johnson; teachers included Josef Albers, Robert Motherwell, John Cage and Merce Cunningham. Rauschenberg did not get on particularly well with Josef Albers. He thought that Albers was too stiff and regimented. Years later Rauschenberg remarked that “[Albers] was a beautiful teacher and an impossible person. He wasn’t easy to talk to, and I found his criticism so devastating that I never asked for it. Years later, though, I’m still learning what he taught me, because what he taught had to do with the entire visual world. The focus was always on your personal sense of looking.”
In the 1960s, Rauschenberg began producing limited edition posters that complemented his sculpture, painting and assemblage work. This exhibition, from the Mary Lynn Kotz collection, spans several decades of the artist’s posters and shows the breadth and depth of his fascinating and enormously influential vision.
Poetry
An Evening with Fred Chappell
With Special Guests Keith Flynn & Glenis Redmond
Join three award-winning writers from North Carolina for a stellar night of poetry. Asheville-based author and editor of Rivendell, Sebastian Matthews, will introduce these dynamic and much-admired authors.
Event Raffle: A signed, limited-edition fine art broadside of Charles Wright’s poem “China Traces” created at Book Works Studio.
Tuesday, June 12, 7:30 p.m.
$12, $10 for BMCM+AC members and students w/ID
Co-sponsored by Rivendell Literary Arts, Book Works Studio, Malaprop’s Bookstore, & The Captain’s Bookshelf
Film Screening
Robert Rauschenberg: Man at Work
One of the most influential American artists of this century, Robert Rauschenberg possesses an indefatigable zeal for fusing real life with art. For the last fifty years, his art has encompassed all manner of experimentation and a vast array of media. This extraordinary profile of the artist, directed by Chris Granlund, is immensely entertaining and illuminating.
Thursday, June 21, 7:00 p.m.
$7, $5 for BMCM+AC members and students w/ID
Fine Arts Theatre, 36 Biltmore Ave. downtown Asheville
Poetry
Antarctica the New Eden
Morganton-based performance poet Ted Pope likes to think of himself as the warm fuzzy wall between the church and the state. Musician and recording engineer Jason Brady will provide the sound environment (including rainstorms and lap steel guitar) for Ted’s poetic investigations.
Friday, July 13, 8:00 p.m.
$7, $5 for BMCM+AC members and students w/ID
Presentation
Cosmological Cinema:
Pedagogy, Propaganda, and Perturbation in Early Dome Theaters
David McConville, co-founder of The Elumenati, will discuss the history, context, and motivations behind dome theaters and the ways in which they have reflected the cosmologies and motivations of their creators from ancient cultures to the present.
Thursday, August 23, 8:00 p.m.
$7, $5 for BMCM+AC members and students w/ID
Unless otherwise noted, events will take place at the Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, 56 Broadway in downtown Asheville, NC.
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