Abstract
In spite of Robert Rauschenberg's own assertions to the contrary, the traditional art historical narrative has continued to claim, up until very recently and in very few instances, that Rauschenberg started out as a fledgling Abstract Expressionist painter. Walter Hopps's 1991 exhibition and accompanying catalogue, Robert Rauschenberg: The Early 1950s, is predicated on its disagreement with this traditional account. Hopps's revised account, however, does maintain certain Abstract Expressionist principles for Rauschenberg-particularly the notion that Rauschenberg's work is expressionist-based. Furthermore, in my view, Hopps's history is problematically ahistorical, reading Rauschenberg's early work as "ahead" of art history. Hopps discusses the White Paintings of 1951, for instance, as Minimalist paintings before Minimalism. Roni Feinstein in her short essay on Rauschenberg's work from the early 1950s comments on the surprising nature of Rauschenberg's early work- further testifying to the preponderance of what I have called the traditional art historical narrative on Rauschenberg. Despite this dominant historical narrative and the fact that Rauschenberg's blue prints, paintings, and collages appeared in predominant Abstract Expressionist arenas in 1951, I contend that his work, even at this early date, marks a site of contention with Abstract Expressionism's major tenets. This study is a focused investigation of Rauschenberg's earliest work (made and shown between 1951 and 1953) to establish its difference from the ideas and products of Abstract Expressionism as it was constructed in the late 1940s and early 1950s; to discuss how this work- far from ignored- was used by the dominant art critical discourse at this crucial moment to circumscribe an acceptable American modernism; and finally to offer new readings of the work in the contexts of Rauschenberg' s career; the discourses of art history and visual theory; and American art and culture in the postwar years.
Author's Department
Graduate School of Architecture
Document Type
Restricted Thesis
Date of Award
5-1-1999
Language
English (en)
Recommended Citation
Mullin, Diane Alison, "Changing the subject : Robert Rauschenberg and the new American art" (1999). Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design Theses & Dissertations. 20.
https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/samfox_arch_etds/20
Comments
Print version in library: https://catalog.wustl.edu:443/record=b2548504~S2