Robert Rauschenberg Untitled (Late Kabal American Zephyr), 1985

Robert Rauschenberg’s long-standing fascination with bicycle wheels can be traced back to Marcel Duchamp’s work Bicycle Wheel (1951), which Rauschenberg called ‘the most fantastic piece of sculpture he’d ever seen.’ Part of a series titled Kabal American Zephyr, this work is made of functioning bicycle wheels, salvaged from Rauschenberg’s next-door neighbour and assembled on top of a crank from an ice-cream machine and an old steering wheel. Rauschenberg sought to recreate a sense of ‘fantasy-macabre’ in the sculptures from this series, referencing the violent but beautiful imagery of nineteenthcentury Japanese woodblock artist Tsukioka Yoshitoshi.