ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG .: A RETROSPECTIVE - Tapa dura

This lavishly illustrated monograph addresses the full scope and complexity of Rauschenberg's work. Accompanying a major traveling retrospective organized by Walter Hopps and Susan Davidson, this catalogue is the definitive source on the artist, and it shows, for the first time in one volume, Rauschenberg's development of particular motifs over the course of his career. Five essays by the exibition's curators and other scholars interpret specific aspects of Rauschenberg's oeuvre while highlighting his unique contribution across disciplines. Three essays for former and current collaborators reveal the artist's working process in the fields of performance and technology-based art. Nine overviews to the full-color plate sections demonstrate how Rauschenberg's work falls into destinct artistic cycles. An exhaustive chronology, including scores of documentary photographs, examines the artist's life and career. Completeing the book are exhibition and performance histories and a bibliography, all reflecting the most current research on this major figure in American art.

In a career that has spanned nearly 50 years, Robert Rauschenberg has redefined the art of our time. Once branded the "bad boy" of American modernism, Rauschenberg has taken a revolutionary approach to traditional art forms and worked in an extraordinarily diverse range of mediums. This volume, which explores the entire scope of his achievement, accompanies the first retrospective exhibition of Rauschenberg's work held since 1976, opening at the Guggenheim Museum, New York, in September 1997 and traveling to Houston in early 1998 and then to Europe and Asia.

Four essays by leading scholars and curators interpret and analyze Rauschenberg's art while emphasizing his unique contribution across disciplines. Two essays by former collaborators provide insight into his involvement with avant-garde performance and technology. And more than 500 illustrations reproduce Rauschenberg's challenging art, from his revolutionary all-white paintings and acclaimed Combines to prints, photographs, and the recent overseas projects that Rauschenberg has pursued in the belief that art and collaboration have the power to bring about social change.

This comprehensive book, which includes an illustrated chronology of Rauschenberg's life and work and up-to-date exhibition and performance histories, will be the essential monograph on Robert Rauschenberg.