• Poster board, paints and markers
• Various art materials
• Found objects, costumes, and junk
• Current magazines and newspapers

Bookmarks

There are many sites available focusing on art. A simple search on the Internet will yield many results. The sites listed below represent good sources from which a student can begin his or her research. These sites can be bookmarked, downloaded as a page, or copied as links into a Web page for future student research.

Museums and Galleries

http://www.guggenheim-bilbao.es/ingles/exposiciones/rauschenberg/contenido.htm

A description of the Guggenheim retrospective, this one from the museum in Bilbao. Includes an artist bio and some images from the show.

http://www.guggenheim.org/press_releases/gift.html

Guggenheim Museum supports the work of Robert Rauschenberg in a Press Release

http://www.famsf.org

Fine Arts Museums, San Francisco. Zoom in on even the finest details of the 14 reproductions available here which showcase the bizarre Pop images from Rauschenberg’s repertoire. To see these go to http://www.famsf.org and then search “Robert Raushenberg”

http://www.diamondial.org/home.html

Detroit Institute of Arts.. Search “Robert Rauschenberg”..Six images make up this gallery of Rauschenberg paintings. View such titles as Creek and numbers one through five of the Bellini series.

http://www.tate.org.uk/collections/default.jsp

Tate Collection. Although images may not be available for all of the 19 works by the artist held in the Tate galleries, find a fact sheet about each, and a bio.

http://www.artnet.com/

Browse three pages of photos representing 20 works by the prolific 20th Century artist. Click each thumbnail for a big image and a fact sheet.

Images

http://www.artchive.com/artchive/R/rauschenberg.html

Small collection of images by the painter famous for his white-on-white canvases and postmodern montages.

Articles

Time Magazine Article: Review of the huge Rauschenberg retrospective at the Guggenheim complains of its overwhelming size, but speaks positively about the artist.

http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m1248/n2_v86/20333106/p1/article.jhtml

Art In America. Examines Rauschenberg’s work in the wake of a huge traveling retrospective of his long career. Written by Roni Feinstein in 1998.

http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/1997/11/28/feat/arts.1.html

Article discusses the artist’s legacy in light of a monumental 1998 retrospective of his works at the Solomon R. Guggenheim museum.

Dictionary of Art terms

http://www.aliceville.com/artdicti.htm

http://www.albany.edu/projren/1997_98/student_projects/museum/art/late/rausch.htm

Encyclopedias

http://encarta.msn.com/find/Concise.asp?ti=04ADE000

MSN Encarta. Contains an encyclopedia entry on the 20th-century American painter from Texas. Review a gallery of his work.

http://artcyclopedia.com/artists/rauschenberg_robert.html

Artcyclopedia. Resource lists museums, galleries, art archives, and magazine articles that offer information about the Pop artist, and images of his works.

Alternative Art Movements

http://www.artnetwork.com/mailart/johnheldjr.html

Information about Postal Art through the century

Biography and Community

http://www.fi.muni.cz/~toms/PopArt/Biographies/rauschenberg.html

Biographical sketch of American painter described as a “Neo-Dadaist” by his linking the abstract expressionism and pop art movements.

http://www.catharton.com/artists/171.htm

Robert Rauschenberg community. This is a good portal for other resources as well as communicating with the artist

Steps

Time Allotment: 6 weeks

Step One

In a class discussion, read aloud the Rauschenberg essay on the American Masters Web site (http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/rauschenberg_r.html- to your students. As you read the article, moderate a discussion by stopping to ask questions. Have students take notes and write down their thoughts and ideas for future reference. These notes will come in handy when the students do individual research. (The questions below are in sequence to the article).

(Inventive Genius) “It wasn’t until 1947, while in the U.S. Marines that he discovered his aptitude for drawing and his interest in the artistic representation of everyday objects and people.”

• • (Question to Students) How old was Rauschenberg when he became an artist? How old do you have to be to become an artist? What does this say about artists? What is your perspective of what an artist is, looks like or acts like? How are artists portrayed in popular culture?

“It was there with such exciting young artists as dancer, Merce Cunningham, and musician, John Cage, that he planted the seeds of what was to be an artistic revolution.”

• • What is an artistic revolution? Are you aware of any other kinds of revolutions? What happens during revolutions? Why would the author of this essay use the term artistic revolution to describe this time period in history (1948)? What else was happening in the world in the late 1940’s and 1950’s? How have movies portrayed that time?

“It was there, among the chaos and excitement of city life, that Rauschenberg realized the full extent of what he could bring to painting.”

• • How did Rauschenberg use the world around him to influence his artwork? Was this a change from other artwork of the time? The politics of the time were very conservative, especially after WWII, what do you think Rauschenberg was trying to do with his artwork?

Rauschenberg’s enthusiasm for popular culture… seriousness of Abstract Expressionists…”

• • What is popular culture? Is it the same as pop culture? What do you think abstract expressionism means without looking it up?

“…his work had moved from abstract painting to drawings like “Erased De Kooning” (which was exactly what it sounds like) to what he termed “combines.”

• • What do you think combine art is? What do you think formal painting is? What objects could you use to illustrate your world? What do found objects express in sculpture?

“One of the first and most famous combines was entitled “”Monogram’ and consisted of an unlikely set of materials: a stuffed Angora goat, a tire, a police barrier, the heel of a shoe, a tennis ball, and paint.”

• • Why do you think Rauschenberg chose these objects? How do found objects express the artist himself? Why do you think the critics were horrified?

“As pop art was emerging, Rauschenberg turned away from three-dimensional combines and began to work in two dimensions, using magazine photographs of current events to create silk-screen prints.”

• • What would you use to make a two-dimensional combine yourself?

“Using this new method he found he could make a commentary on contemporary society using the very images that helped to create that society.”

• • How could you make a commentary on your environment, society, school, life, and political climate?

“He also created performance pieces centered around chance.”

• • What do you think the significance of performance art was? How different or similar are performances to combines?

“Throughout the eighties and nineties Rauschenberg continued his experimentation, concentrating primarily on collage…”

• • What do you think collage is? Why would he concentrate “primarily on collage”?

Step Two

Divide your students into groups. Have each group fill out the Student Organizer #1 and then define the vocabulary in Student Organizer #2. Students should work in a teams mapping different political and social events over the past 50 years. Students will find the list of Web sites (Student Organizer #3 and #4) as a good starting point.

Step Three

Have a class discussion about the various art movements. Help them to understand the relationship between art, culture, politics, technology and society. In the group discussion, students should understand how one influences and changes the other. For example: The Pop Art movement in the 50’s was a direct result of post WWII advertisement and technological advances.

Step Four

Using the research students have done, have each group write an essay on the relationship between Rauschenberg’s artwork (each group should pick a different era or art movement) and the political environment of the time.

Step Five

Present the student work. Have students translate their research and essays into a two or three-dimensional combines, performances, installations or multimedia presentations. HAVE FUN!

Additional Activities — REINVENT YOUR CLASSROOM

1. Create a celebration of art! Turn your classroom into an art gallery and have a show! Have each student produce an art piece that expresses themselves and/or their community. As part of the art show, have students create their own art movement and art manifesto, i.e. “21^st century Popular Abstract Color Rebels.”
2. Have students create their own two or three-dimensional combines. Have the artwork represent current events in newspapers and magazines.
3. Have students create a performance using found objects. Model it after Rauschenberg’s performance art work.
4. Make your classroom into a giant installation art piece.
5. Good luck!

Robert Rauschenberg is one of the pivotal artists of the 20^th century. His work, perhaps more than any other artist of his time, holds a mirror up to our culture. Using the American Masters online essay as a tool, this lesson will examine the cultural context of Robert Rauschenberg’s work. Students will be encouraged to draw inspiration, as Rauschenberg did, from the political, artistic, and social culture of our times.

Grade Level

6 – 8

Subject Areas

• Social Studies: American and Art History
• Language Arts: writing, reading and presenting research
• All kinds of Art

Students will be able to:

• Discover what popular art, abstract expressions, and various art movements have been over the last 50 years
• Learn the artistic influence of Robert Rauschenberg
• Understand how politics has been expressed in art and how art has become political
• Understand how history can be interpreted through art and art through history
• Understand how art can be used to deconstruct social messages
• Learn what materials artists use to communicate and why
• Discover how artists find inspiration
• Create new and inventive pieces of art using the world around them as resources
• Invent their own art movement and construct art that conveys their personal messages

Standards

This lesson integrates the national teaching standards of English and Technology. Students will apply a wide range of strategies for research, comprehension, interpretation, evaluation, languages (written and spoken), diversity, creativity, critical thinking and deconstruction of various mediums. Student will build an understanding of the many dimensions of the educational process including texts, technology, speech, themselves, cultures of the United States and the world, and the human experience. To learn more about national English and Technological standards go to: http://www.iste.org and http://www.ncte.org.

Exploring the American Dream — #1

Reinventing Art: Robert Rauschenberg — #2

Reinventing Art: Robert Rauschenberg — #3

These are 4 places to start searching for Art History and Art movements through the late part of the 20^th century.

20^th Century Art

http://witcombe.sbc.edu/ARTH20thcentury.html

The Brain Bank is an Art history site

http://www.cftech.com/BrainBank/OTHERREFERENCE/THEARTS/ArtMvmtsandPeriods.html

This is a Google Search. Google offers a greate resource for Art history sites. I would also try Yahoo (www.yahoo.com) and Webcrawler (www.webcrawler.com).

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22art+movements%22

Reinventing Art: Robert Rauschenberg — #4

These are three excellent sites to begin a historical search comparing art and culture. Find the date(s) of the art movement then go to one of these time lines for historical and political references. From there, you can search your favorite search engine for more details.

The 20th Century – CNN

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/1999/century/

The 20th Century – Time

http://www.time.com/time/time100/index.html

The People’s Century Timeline – PBS

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/peoplescentury/timeline/

Born in Port Arthur, Texas in 1925, Robert Rauschenberg imagined himself first as a minister and later as a pharmacist. It wasn’t until 1947, while in the U.S. Marines that he discovered his aptitude for drawing and his interest in the artistic representation of everyday objects and people. After leaving the Marines he studied art in Paris on the G.I. Bill, but quickly became disenchanted with the European art scene. After less than a year he moved to North Carolina, where the country’s most visionary artists and thinkers, such as Joseph Albers and Buckminster Fuller, were teaching at Black Mountain College. There, with artists such as dancer Merce Cunningham and musician John Cage, Rauschenberg began what was to be an artistic revolution. Soon, North Carolina country life began to seem small and he left for New York to make it as a painter. There, amidst the chaos and excitement of city life Rauschenberg realized the full extent of what he could bring to painting.

Rauschenberg’s enthusiasm for popular culture and his rejection of the angst and seriousness of the Abstract Expressionists led him to search for a new way of painting. He found his signature mode by embracing materials traditionally outside of the artist’s reach. He would cover a canvas with house paint, or ink the wheel of a car and run it over paper to create a drawing, while demonstrating rigor and concern for formal painting. By 1958, at the time of his first solo exhibition at the Leo Castelli Gallery, his work had moved from abstract painting to drawings like “Erased De Kooning” (1953) (which was exactly as it sounds) to what he termed “combines.” These combines (meant to express both the finding and forming of combinations in three-dimensional collage) cemented his place in art history.

One of Rauschenberg’s first and most famous combines was entitled “Monogram” (1959) and consisted of an unlikely set of materials: a stuffed angora goat, a tire, a police barrier, the heel of a shoe, a tennis ball, and paint. This pioneering altered the course of modern art. The idea of combining and of noticing combinations of objects and images has remained at the core of Rauschenberg’s work. As Pop Art emerged in the ’60s, Rauschenberg turned away from three-dimensional combines and began to work in two dimensions, using magazine photographs of current events to create silk-screen prints. Rauschenberg transferred prints of familiar images, such as JFK or baseball games, to canvases and overlapped them with painted brushstrokes. They looked like abstractions from a distance, but up close the images related to each other, as if in conversation. These collages were a way of bringing together the inventiveness of his combines with his love for painting. Using this new method he found he could make a commentary on contemporary society using the very images that helped to create that society.

From the mid sixties through the seventies he continued the experimentation in prints by printing onto aluminum, moving plexiglass disks, clothes, and other surfaces. He challenged the view of the artist as auteur by assembling engineers to help in the production of pieces technologically designed to incorporate the viewer as an active participant in the work. He also created performance pieces centered around chance. To watch dancers on roller-skates (”Pelican”, 1963) or to hear the sound of a gong every time a tennis ball was hit (”Open Score”, 1966), was to witness an art that exchanged lofty ambitions for a sense of excitement and playfulness while retaining meaning.

Throughout the ’80s and ’90s Rauschenberg continued his experimentation, concentrating primarily on collage and new ways to transfer photographs. In 1998 The Guggenheim Museum put on its largest exhibition ever with four hundred works by Rauschenberg, showcasing the breadth and beauty of his work, and its influence over the second half of the century. Rauschenberg lives in Florida and continues to work, bringing his sense of excitement and challenge into a new century.