I recently read a really good profile on Robert Rauschenberg in The New Yorker(conicidentally, they have a piece on Jasper Johns in this week's issue), the piece was written by Calvin Tomkins, the author of The Bride and the Bachelors. I have always been fascinated with Rauschenberg's Combines, those bizarre "sculptures" he was making in the early sixties, and I have always enjoyed the overall energy in his work.
Unfortunately, he suffered a stroke a few years ago and has to have aides help him create his new works. I find that the pieces are simple in their linearity and blocky, but I don't find them clumsy. There is nice flow to their patchwork effect.
There is an exhibit up right now of Rauschenberg's Scenarios, as he calls these new pieces, at the University of Louisian-Lafayette. Here is a quote from their site:
For more than five decades Robert Rauschenberg has worked with unrelenting energy, inventiveness, and curiosity to create works of unparalleled depth and breadth. His fusion of imagery and objects has blurred the boundaries between traditional art-making genres and methods, redefining conventional notions of painting, sculpture, photography, printmaking, and performance, and distinguishing him as one of the most innovative artists of the 20th century.Posted by Paul Hina at May 26, 2005 12:11 AM