The Ascent of Rauschenberg: Reinventing the Art of Flight Robert Rauschenberg Headlines Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum Reopening

By Verity Babbs

An exhibition devoted to Robert Rauschenberg will headline the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum when it reopens its Flight and Arts Center in July following a multi-million-dollar renovation.

“The Ascent of Rauschenberg: Reinventing the Art of Flight” features 30 works by the American Pop artist—some never before shown—tracing how themes of flight and space exploration ran through his six-decade career.

A key figure of the mid-century New York art scene and widely regarded as the first postmodern artist, Rauschenberg blended Dadaist influences with early Pop Art sensibilities. He was fascinated by aeronautics and references to all types of flight appeared throughout his diverse body of work.

Birds crop up regularly in his compositions, like in his early work, Canyon (1959), part of his series of “Combines” which melded painting and sculptural practices, which features a protruding eagle. In 1963, he collaborated with the choreographer Merce Cunningham to create Pelican, a dance performance inspired by avian flight which saw dancers roller skate with a parachute attached to their back in an attempt to make them airborne.

In a 1996 Artforum interview, Rauschenberg said that the artwork other than his own that he most wished he could have created was “to have been around to help the Wright brothers work on their concept of flying bicycles.” A hint of this wheeled flying machine can be seen in his 1974 work Kitty Hawk.