Souvenirs Without Nostalgia
The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation has given three works by the artist to the Artist Rooms collection, which is jointly managed by the London-based Tate group and National Galleries Scotland.
Rauschenberg is known above all for his «Combines» of the post-war years, but all three donated works belong to the series of the 1980s called Gluts, literally «surfeit, satiety». The series was a statement about excess. Like the «Combines», these sculptures are assembled from ready-made materials taken from everyday life, mostly found pieces of metal.
Rauschenberg regarded the Gluts as a commentary on excess: he made them while the USA was living through an oil glut, and saw in this refuse a sign of social decay.
The three donated sculptures, G-I Glut of 1986, Rasputin's Revenge Early Winter Glut of 1987 and Mobile Cluster Glut of 1987, will go on show in September at Tate Modern, in a room of 25 works by Rauschenberg.
