The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation is pleased to announce the commencement of the Robert Rauschenberg Catalogue Raisonné of painting and sculpture. In keeping with the spirit of radical innovation and broad inclusiveness that drove Rauschenberg’s artistic endeavors, the project will be unlike any prior catalogue raisonné for an artist of this stature in both its thematic scope and its digital accessibility. Published online and free of charge, the catalogue will be released in a series of volumes beginning with an overview volume (Volume 1) and a volume of the early work (Volume 2; 1948–53) available in 2025, to mark the artist’s centennial. Co-edited by Julia Blaut, Senior Director of Curatorial Affairs at the Rauschenberg Foundation, and Eric Banks, Director of the New York Institute for the Humanities, the catalogue will feature essays by numerous artists and writers examining individual artworks with particular significance not only to Rauschenberg’s career, but to the history of postwar art and beyond.

Confirmed contributors include: Carlos Basualdo, Susan Davidson, Darby English, Michael Lobel, Courtney J. Martin, Helen Molesworth, Amy Sillman, Jeffrey Weiss, and Terry Winters. Artist and Rauschenberg Foundation board member Glenn Ligon will also contribute.

"Our vision in developing a methodology for cataloguing and accessing Bob’s entire career and the things that drove him—from his travels across continents to the political and environmental challenges he sought to ameliorate—is to reflect the iconoclasm, responsiveness and spirit of collaboration that shaped his more than 60 years of work. I like to think of Bob as a renaissance man, our da Vinci: an inventor of the highest order and sweep.”
—Kathy Halbreich, Executive Director at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation

"It's no small task to capture the range and extent of the impact Robert Rauschenberg had on the art world of his time, and our own. To approximate it, the catalogue raisonné includes not just the voices of scholars but those of a range of contributors, including critics, writers, artists and conservators. Specific interventions oriented around various pivotal works from Rauschenberg's early years offer a fresh consideration of the artist’s output that continues to reverberate today."
—Eric Banks, Director of the New York Institute for the Humanities

The scope, ambition, design, and execution of the catalogue raisonné have been carefully considered to best serve the needs of a wide range of constituencies that will have the opportunity to access and engage with this digital resource.

Furthermore, the Foundation will make use of all the technical possibilities of a digital publication to demonstrate Rauschenberg’s interests, processes and collaborations, to allow ongoing updates, and to provide open and free access to the entire catalogue.

Catalogue Raisonné Details

• Years covered when completed: 1948-2008
• Approximately 3,000 artwork entries
  • Will include paintings and sculptures; it will not include drawings, photographs, and editions
• Ten digital volumes:
  • An overview volume (Volume 1) and a volume of the early work (Volume 2; 1948–53) will be published digitally in 2025, the centennial of the artist’s birth
  • The catalogue will be entirely digital; no print edition is planned
  • The digital format will allow the Foundation to continue updating the catalogue raisonné with the most current research
  • The catalogue will be accessible free of charge, with no subscription or paywall
• Co-edited by Julia Blaut, Senior Director of Curatorial Affairs at the Rauschenberg Foundation, and Eric Banks, Director of the New York Institute for the Humanities
• Confirmed contributors (as of February 2022) include: Carlos Basualdo, Susan Davidson, Leah Dickerman, Darby English, Glenn Ligon, Michael Lobel, Courtney Martin, Helen Molesworth, Jennifer L. Roberts, Amy Sillman, Jeffrey Weiss, and Terry Winters
• This is approximately a fifteen-to-twenty-year project

About The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation
The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation builds on the legacy of Robert Rauschenberg (1925–2008) who believed strongly that creative practitioners could serve as catalysts for social change. He shared his appreciation for chance and the everyday by seeking to act in the “gap” between art and life. He was also a gifted collaborator, breaking disciplinary boundaries by experimenting with scientists, performers, and visual artists. As such, we celebrate new and even untested ways of thinking and acting.

The Foundation maintains residencies for artists and scholars in Captiva, Florida, and in its New York archives, and operates a philanthropic program that supports small to mid-size arts and socially engaged organizations that are experimental in approach and drive towards equity. Additionally, it promotes in-depth research and partnerships for staff, curators, critics, scholars, and students that open the artist’s life and work to wider interpretation and understanding, and supports exhibitions, publications, and special projects across the globe that reflect Rauschenberg’s joyful, responsive, and irreverent approach to making art while living an empathetic and meaningful life.

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Media Contacts
For interviews, background and images, please contact:

Andy Cushman or Andrea Bruce
Blue Medium, Inc.
Tel: +1-212-675-1800
acushman@bluemedium.com
andrea@bluemedium.com