3436 - ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG

ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG (Port Arthur 1925–2008 Captiva Island) Markette [(Anagram (A Pun)]. 1999. Vegetable dye transfer on polylaminate. Signed and dated lower center: RAUSCHENBERG 99. Numbered on the reverse: 99.040. 244 × 151 cm. In the original artist’s frame. Provenance: - Galerie Jamileh Weber, Zurich (label on the reverse). - Private collection, Switzerland, acquired from the above gallery in 1999. - Private collection, Switzerland, by inheritance. This work is registered with the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, New York City, under no. RRF 99.040. Robert Rauschenberg’s 1999 work “Markette” presents a multilayered pictorial collage combining photographic fragments, lettering, and painterly gestures. Its vertical orientation lends the work a striking presence. It appears as a visual archive of everyday life, in which different impressions overlap and partially dissolve again. The picture surface is characterized by an interplay between light, almost untreated areas and intense concentrations of color. In the upper section, a market stall displaying fruit draws the eye. Red and yellow accents contrast with dark areas and blurred pictorial traces. Fragments of lettering also emerge, reminiscent of posters and commercial signage. Partially obscured, they become both graphic elements of the composition and carriers of linguistic meaning. In the central section, layers of blue, black, and gray grow denser. Photographic subjects are only partially recognizable and combine with painterly traces to create an almost abstract pictorial plane. In the lower section, blue and red forms provide further accents. The viewer’s gaze moves between recognizable objects and abstract areas, between photographic precision and painterly blurring. The multilayered composition continually reveals new details and connections. Robert Rauschenberg is among the most important figures in American postwar art. His work shaped the transition from Abstract Expressionism to Pop Art and influenced the development of conceptual art. As early as the 1950s, he combined painting, photography, and real objects in his so-called “Combines,” dissolving the traditional separation between art and everyday life. In Rauschenberg’s works, reality appears as a continuous stream of visual impressions. Photographs, advertising images, and subjects from public spaces serve as source material for new pictorial worlds. Images are removed from their original contexts and placed in new relationships. In the “Anagram (A Pun)” series, produced between 1997 and 2002, Rauschenberg further developed this approach using digital imaging technologies. He drew on photographs from his own archive and transferred them onto various surfaces. The manual process and the transfer technique created characteristic blurring, overlapping, and traces of the material, lending the photographic subjects a painterly quality. The title “Anagram (A Pun)” also refers to rearrangement and wordplay. Applied to the composition, this means that subjects take on new meanings and allow for fresh associations. Viewers are invited to connect the fragments in their minds and establish their own relationships.