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VENICE: the Peggy Guggenheim Collection - Robert Rauschenberg: Gluts. A year after Robert Rauschenberg’s death the Peggy Guggenheim Collection pays tribute to one of the greatest and most influential American artists of the postwar generation. The exhibition Robert Rauschenberg: Gluts, until September 20th, features the Gluts, a select group of forty sculptural works begun in 1986 and continued intermittently until 1995. Rauschenberg’s artistic attention in the 1980s turned toward an exploration of the visual properties of metal. He assembled found metal objects such as gas-station signs, deteriorated automotive and industrial parts littering the landscape, and transformed the scrap-metal detritus into wall reliefs and freestanding sculptures.
What is a glut? The series Gluts was inspired by a visit to Houston in the mid 1980s, when the Texas economy was in the throes of a recession due to a glut (or surplus of supply) in the oil market that Rauschenberg took note of. Asked to comment on the meaning of the Gluts, Rauschenberg offered: “It’s a time of glut. Greed is rampant. I’m just exposing it, trying to wake people up. I simply want to present people with their ruins. I think of the Gluts as souvenirs without nostalgia. What they are really meant to do is give people an experience of looking at everything in terms of what its many possibilities might be.”
Robert Rauschenberg: Gluts. Summer Glut Fence, 1987 – assembled metal.
Seen at Peggy Guggenheim Collection – the two directors. The Peggy Guggenheim Collection director, Philip Rylands co-hosted the Robert Rauschenberg: Gluts exhibition with Richard Armstrong, director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and Museum.
Seen at Peggy Guggenheim Collection. Robert Rauschenberg’s photographer son, Christopher.
Seen at Peggy Guggenheim Collection. New York based entrepreneur, Barto Bellati chats with legendary Pop artist, James Rosenquist.
Seen at Peggy Guggenheim Collection. Student, Lily Rosenquist and her mother, writer, Mimi Thompson Rosenquist.
Seen at Peggy Guggenheim Collection. Artist, Darryl Pottorf trained both as an artist and an architect and has been producing visually provocative forms for more than three decades. For more than 20 years, Pottorf first assisted and later collaborated with Robert Rauschenberg.
Robert Rauschenberg: Gluts. Another favorite Glut: Stop Side Early Winter Glut, 1987 – assembled metal.
Seen at Peggy Guggenheim Collection. Venice based artists, Lucy and Lawrence Carroll.
Seen at Peggy Guggenheim Collection. Venice based artists, Lucy and Lawrence Carroll.
Robert Rauschenberg: Gluts. A detail of one of my favorite gluts: Snow Crab Crystal Glut, 1987 – assembled metal and plastic.
Seen at Peggy Guggenheim Collection. “Streamline” designer and architect, Massimo Iosa Ghini and his wife Milena.
Seen at Peggy Guggenheim Collection. The Peggy Guggenheim Collection’s director Philip Rylands chats with the two curators of the Robert Rauschenberg: Gluts exhibition, Susan Davidson and David White.
Seen at Peggy Guggenheim Collection. Judith waits patiently in the courtyard for her master while he is viewing the Rauschenberg exhibition.
The Peggy Guggenheim Collection. Until November 22nd, Belgian artist Wim Delvoye latest creation Torre: a steel Gothic tower constructed, with oval windows and turrets, rises high over the terrace of the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, overlooking the Grand Canal.
A detail. A close-up of Wim Delvoye’s Gothic tower.