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New London show reveals Robert Rauschenberg’s global ambitions Beyond borders

26 April 2024

Ely House, London

ROCI project was seen in ten countries in the 1980s including the Soviet Union and Cuba

By Gareth Harris

A series of rarely shown works by the late US artist Robert Rauschenberg produced for a 1980s programme promoting cross-border collaborations between countries—some of them dictatorships—has gone on show at Thaddaeus Ropac gallery in London (Robert Rauschenberg, ROCI, 24 April-15 June).

The works were made between 1984 and 1991 for the Rauschenberg Overseas Culture Interchange—known as ROCI—whereby the artist dispatched and displayed his own paintings, sculptures and editioned objects in ten countries: Mexico, Chile, Venezuela, China, Tibet, Japan, Cuba, the Soviet Union, Germany and Malaysia.

All of the pieces are drawn from the New York-based Robert Rauschenberg Foundation. “This is the first gallery survey dedicated to ROCI since the conclusion of the project in 1991,” a project statement says. A selection of the works are for sale.

Rauschenberg meticulously researched and organised each leg of the ROCI project which he largely funded. He first undertook a research trip to each participating country ahead of the show to meet local and regional artists and cultural figures. He then made new works at his Florida studio based on his experiences which were shown during each leg alongside a selection of ROCI pieces from the previous countries.

More than 300,000 people attended the ROCI CHINA exhibition that opened at the National Art Gallery, Beijing, in November 1985. The show included examples of Rauschenberg’s 7 Characters (1982), a series of collages representing seven Chinese characters.

For ROCI CUBA in 1988, Rauschenberg produced a series of paintings on aluminium and steel using primary colours, which were displayed at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, the Castillo de la Fuerza and Casa de las Américas, and at the Galleria Haydee Santamaría, Havana.

According to the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation website, the artist countered criticism that his paintings did not celebrate the complete history of Cuba during an open forum for students and the public, saying: “To break down barriers, I think you need to see as an alien does—to get lost in the city, or in the country, to see things in Cuba that maybe you are blind to.” Due to the US embargo on Cuba, works for the exhibition were required to pass through Mexico before arriving in Cuba.

The exhibition includes works made in a variety of media, shown in the different countries, such as Night Post/Roci Mexico (1985), a cardboard composition dotted with tequila brand names, and the vast silkscreen work Caryatid Cavalcade I/Roci Chile(1985).

Julia Blaut, the senior director of curatorial affairs at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation in New York, says that the internationalist aspect of the ROCI project strikes a chord in today’s more isolationist world.

She says: “When planning this exhibition for Thaddaeus Ropac in London, the ROCI works felt especially compelling and relevant to this moment in time when countries around the world are becoming increasingly nationalistic and isolated. We felt there might be a worthwhile message in looking again at ROCI and the collaboration that can be achieved through finding common ground in culture. As Rauschenberg himself said: ‘Art has no borders. Specialisation leads to cultural sterilisation. An artist is a diplomat, a prophet, a historian, a poet’.”

The project also made politicians at the time sit up and take notice. “The countries he chose were largely places where artistic dialogue had been suppressed, where he felt that artists were existing in isolation, and where he didn’t think politicians were doing a very good job at creating dialogue or building bridges. He was collaborating with people whose politics he didn't necessarily agree with in his desire to make exchange happen and open up to new ideas,” Blaut adds.