Watch curator and art historian Mark Godfrey speak about Robert Rauschenberg’s exhibition Night Shades and Phantoms.

‘As a viewer, you become a kind of a performer. You become aware of that act of viewing because the image in those works is harder to see, because your reflection is superimposed onto the panel.’ – Mark Godfrey

Robert Rauschenberg’s Night Shades and Phantoms are two series of metal paintings from 1991, composed of silk-screened photographic images and gestural strokes on aluminium supports. Made during his decade-long experimentations with metal, these paintings are characterised by their grayscale palette, which ranges from the Night Shades' painterly chiaroscuro to the Phantoms' mirrored surfaces and ethereal translucency.