Robert Rauschenberg and Surrealism - (Transnational Surrealism) by Gavin Parkinson (Paperback)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

The art of Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008) is usually viewed as quite distinct from Surrealism, a movement which the artist himself displayed some hostility towards. However, Rauschenberg had a very positive reception among Surrealists, particularly across the period 1959-69.

In the face of Rauschenberg's avowals of his own 'literalism' and insistence on his art as 'facts, ' this book gathers generous evidence of the poetic, metaphorical, allusive, associative and connotative dimensions of the artist's oeuvre as identified by Surrealists, and thus extrapolates new readings from Rauschenberg's key works on that basis. Setting Rauschenberg's work in a postwar context of US cultural imperialism, and the increasingly politicized activities of the Surrealists in the era of the Algerian War of Independence (1954-62), Parkinson draws fresh connections between the ethical and political dimensions of surrealism and the anti-war and anti-colonialist struggles of the time.

Offering a new interpretation and perspective on Rauschenberg's European connections, this book is vital reading for students of global modernism and the trajectory of 1960s American art criticism and history.

Review Quotes

"This impressive book is more than a study on Rauschenberg and Surrealism, more specifically on the largely unnoticed or forgotten link between them. It is also a reflection on the way we write art history today, as a strange mix of theory, thoroughly documented archival research and, above all, an obsession with linear periodization [...] all students may find here an inspiring model of how to perform archival close-reading." --Jan Baetens, Leonardo Reviews

"Parkinson's expansive study opens up poetic, allusive, and sometimes political layers in Rauschenberg 's works, unearthing important responses from Parisian critics and writers. This approach unexpectedly establishes Rauschenberg's Surrealist inflected roots, whilst contributing to the recent wave of expanded consideration of post-war, later Surrealism." --Lewis Kachur, author of Displaying the Marvellous: Marcel Duchamp, Salvador Dali, and Surrealist Exhibition Installations (2001), and Professor of Art History, Kean University, USA

"With remarkable precision, thoroughness, and generative energy, Parkinson's book offers an authoritative account of the French surrealist reception of Rauschenberg's work in the 1960s. Analysing little-known and untranslated texts, Parkinson shows just how enmeshed the aesthetic and political registers were for these writers and artists." --Edward Krcma, Associate Professor of Art History, Department of Art History and World Art Studies, University of East Anglia, UK

About the Author