ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG
“(Robert)
Rauschenberg: 2nd Week November”. New York: Leo Castelli, 1961
(November 7 – December 5, 1961).
Lithograph on heavy paper. Folded as issued. 22 ½ x 17 ½”.
This printing
conceived by Rauschenberg from a staged photograph of collaged detritus
includes a stenciled photograph-with-the-photograph announcing his second
one-person exhibition at Leo Castelli Gallery. According to the Rauschenberg
Foundation, this is the first exhibition poster conceived by the artist, however,
for Leo Castelli. This exhibition poster — if we can call it that
— is created
with the same collage tactics also deployed in the works exhibited at Castelli,
only here it is a photographic readymade: it succeeds nearly as
magnificently, too, falling ambiguously into the void between art and life.
Few exhibition
announcements come as closely as this one does to nearly absenting itself from the workman-like task of exhibition
poster design, one essential task of which is to announce the quotidian details
of the exhibition’s place and time. Normally, the viewer is told where and
when, but here, instead, he is compelled to become a detective: the
name where the exhbition takes place
— Castelli Gallery
— is truncated to read only as
“Castelli,” appearing only on a tiny, torn piece of paper lying inconspicuously
among the staged, “found” trash. No precise gallery location or dates are
provided (the verso is blank). A seemingly discarded photograph-within-the-photograph is strewn on the ground, however, stenciled
with the following cryptic clue: “2nd Week of November”. Nowhere republished in the Rauschenberg
literature and previously unknown to us, this very early Castelli publishing
effort might be understood to also signal not only Rauschenberg’s passion for
printed things, but also the ambitions of the extraordinary Castelli publishing
program to follow. Folded, as issued. Mint condition. No time staining.
Extremely rare. For reference: the
original contact negative used by Rauschenberg to create this exhibition poster
is reproduced in Robert Rauschenberg: Photographs 1949-1962, eds. Susan
Davidson and David White (DAP: New
York
© Todd Alden 2012 Enquire
© Todd Alden 2012 Enquire