Robert Rauschenberg - MONOGRAM - The Moderna Museet Collection - Stockholm

Robert Rauschenberg (1925–2008) is regarded as one of the most important artists of the post-war era and has influenced practitioners in a range of directions and practices, such as Pop, Neo-Dada, assemblage, Fluxus, Nouveau réalisme and performance art.

“Monogram”, which has been part of the Moderna Museet Collection since 1964, belongs to the works that Robert Rauschenberg called “combines” – a kind of hybrid between painting and sculpture. The angora goat was found by Rauschenberg in a used office furniture store and the work went through several reworkings before the goat was finally placed on the collage-like painting, where it now stands.

The work got its title from the way the horned goat and the car tire wrap around each other like the letters in a monogram. The interpretations of “Monogram” are many and in various ways they have been associated with Rauschenberg’s childhood in Texas, as well as with religion, sexuality and the city of New York. For the exhibition in The Study Gallery, documents, letters and photographs have been selected from the museum’s archive that relate to both “Monogram” and Robert Rauschenberg. A selection of Rauschenberg’s works on paper are also shown on some of the display screens in the Study Gallery.

Robert Rauschenberg’s contacts with the Moderna Museet began as early as 1961 in connection with the legendary exhibition “Movement in Art”. Pontus Hultén had taken over the management of the museum in 1960, two years after its opening on Skeppsholmen. He had come to know Rauschenberg’s art in Paris, which led to Rauschenberg becoming one of several young American artists invited to participate in various projects at the new, progressive museum. Go to Website

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