Presenting works directly from the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, this is the first gallery survey dedicated to ROCI since the conclusion of the project. Held in London in a moment of deep global uncertainty, the exhibition revisits the project to consider the power of international collaboration and artistic exchange in the 21st century.
Watch Julia Blaut, Senior Director of Curatorial Affairs at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, introduce the exhibition
Working with a small team, Rauschenberg undertook research trips to participating countries, where he visited sites of interest and met with local artists, artisans and prominent cultural figures. He then returned to his studio in Captiva, Florida, where he created a body of work inspired by his observations of the material and social fabric of the place. These new works were exhibited in the host country alongside a touring retrospective of the artist's work and a selection of ROCI pieces from previous countries, facilitating cross-cultural dialogues.
Caryatid Cavalcade I / ROCI CHILE (1985) is one of two monumental canvases created for the ROCI CHILE exhibition held at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Santiago in 1985. The images of the titular pillars, shaped like draped female forms, are taken from Rauschenberg’s own photograph of the interior of the museum and establish a meta-dialogue between the artwork and the location in which it was first presented.
Compositionally, the remaining vibrantly coloured imagery of Chilean life – also captured through the artist’s lens – is arranged in loose columns to echo the sculptural form of the caryatids.
Caryatid Cavalcade I / ROCI CHILE, 1985
Silkscreen ink, acrylic and graphite on canvas
352.2 x 655.6 cm (138.66 x 258.11 in)
In Night Post / ROCI MEXICO (1985) Rauschenberg repurposes discarded cardboard boxes used to transport Mexican alcohol. Arranged in a quasi-modernist abstract assemblage, the rectangular forms of the deconstructed boxes are echoed by painted and fabric additions, as well as a cardboard piece that floats in the upper left-hand corner.
Rauschenberg had previously explored the potential of cardboard in series from the 1970s, following his relocation from New York City to the quiet island of Captiva in Florida. No longer able to rely on the availability of urban detritus for his artmaking, he asked, ‘what material, no matter where I was in the world, would be available?’ His answer: ‘Cardboard boxes! [...] I still haven’t been any place where there weren’t cardboard boxes… even up the Amazon.’
Night Post / ROCI MEXICO, 1985
Acrylic, fabric and tape on cardboard
214 x 397 x 10 cm (84.25 x 156.3 x 3.94 in)
I couldn't see clearly as an artist until I understood that it wasn't the similarities that were important, it wasn't the similarities that pulled things together, but it was the differences that made things interesting.
— Robert Rauschenberg, 1986
Created for the third ROCI exhibition, held in September 1985 at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Caracas in Venezuela, Rudy's House / ROCI VENEZUELA (1985) depicts an inhospitable landscape of wrought iron chairs, wire fences and metal gates. At the centre of the grey-and-brown composition, the image of a boxer dog is trapped within a three-dimensional chair element, affixed to the surface of the painting.
Named Rudy, the boxer was bred as a fighter dog and had been found by the artist on the city streets, abandoned with his jaw crushed. 'A couple of hippies nursed him back to life,' Rauschenberg recalled. 'He is one of the sweetest dogs I've ever met - and forced to fight!' A staunch pacifist, the artist abhorred violence. Finding parallels in the treatment of Rudy, he said, 'It doesn't take armies to give you an appetite against violence.'
Silkscreen ink, acrylic, Plexiglas, mirror and metal on plywood
250.8 x 125.9 x 54 cm (98.74 x 49.57 x 21.26 in)
Rauschenberg’s research for ROCI VENEZUELA took him to the Amazonas territory, where he met indigenous tribes that made body paint with a pigment derived from the fruit of the annatto tree. He used this red-brown hue in many works in the series, including Onoto Snare / ROCI VENEZUELA (1985) – onoto being the Venezuelan name for the English annatto.
Onoto Snare / ROCI VENEZUELA, 1985
Silkscreen ink, acrylic and graphite on canvas with object
177.2 x 199.1 cm (69.75 x 78.38 in)
The ROCI TIBET series is the only body of work in the ROCI project composed entirely of sculptures. Rauschenberg found it challenging to create works for Tibet because, in his own words, Tibetans 'have that total respect for all things… There is no hierarchy in materials… I thought they were so close to my overall sensibility that I think it was the most difficult show I had to make.' The sculptures were assembled from found objects primarily gathered by the artist in Florida junkyards and were presented at the Tibet Revolutionary Hall, Lhasa in December 1985.
Red Sunday (Domingo Rojo) / ROCI CUBA, 1988
Silkscreen ink and enamel on galvanised steel
215.1 x 124.2 cm (84.69 x 48.9 in)
Level Revel / ROCI USA (Wax Fire Works) (1990) was created for the final ROCI exhibition, held at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. in 1991. The Wax Fire Works were made using a newly developed technique to silkscreen with a form of encaustic, which Rauschenberg called ‘fire wax’. The hot wax, containing pigment, was painted or screenprinted onto metal grounds, reproducing photographs he had taken in Canada and the United States. They are coloured in a diverse, vibrant palette to convey a sense of exuberance or, as the title suggests, revelry.
Level Revel / ROCI USA (Wax Fire Works), 1990
Silkscreen ink and fire wax on mirrored aluminum
246 x 368 cm (96.85 x 144.88 in)
Donald Saff, Robert Rauschenberg and Tom Pruitt working on a ROCI USA painting on metal, October 1990. Photo: George Holzer. Courtesy of the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, New York.
Soviet / American Array VII, 1988–91
Photogravure
199.4 x 129.9 cm (78.5 x 51.14 in)
Another instance of an editioned work made for ROCI is found in Bamhue / ROCI JAPAN (1987). As evidenced by the wordplay of the title, Rauschenberg fused rainbow-hued neon light – possibly in reference to the neon sculptures of American minimalist Dan Flavin – with bamboo, bringing Western contemporary art into dialogue with the traditional Japanese material.
Bamhue / ROCI JAPAN, 1987
Bamboo with neon, electrical timer and metal fixtures
228.6 x 10.2 x 27.3 cm (90 x 4.02 x 10.75 in)
I see the legacy of ROCI, in part, being the ability to look at other cultures, look at other countries, look at other people, and find your common humanity, and that's what I would hope that people take away from viewing the works and the spirit of the project.
— Julia Blaut, Senior Director of Curatorial Affairs at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation
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