Tate Modern and Robert Rauschenberg

I did and liked it

As always when you look at some specific subject a little odd piece of trivia settles in your mind  - the new one for me is that both Janis Joplin and Robert Rauschenberg hailed from the same place (Port Arthur Texas) .


In fact ahead of taking a trip to Tate Modern to look at the Rauschenberg canon I had watched Alistair Sooke holding forth on BBC 2's Artsnight -it's something of a confirmation of his commentary that I felt so inclined to make the journey - some larger exhibitions can feel like work, this was not the case for me in looking at this multi faceted creative.

In fact looking at the exhibition it's rather splendid to see all the areas he took on - you can see he was an early adventurer in exhibitionism, many of his works are conceptual and the relationships he had with Jasper Johns and Cy Twombly are evident too.





I greatly enjoyed learning about his collaborations with engineers and marvelling at Mud Muse which uses a Revox 77 Taper-recorder.

Also good to see the famous 'Retroactive' in the flesh and of course the Goat!