Pioneering Artists Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg at Columbia Museum of Art |
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| Written by Todd Herman, Curator |
| Saturday, 11 July 2009 02:41 |
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Johns and Rauschenberg are considered two of the pioneering artists of the mid-20th century in America. They forged a new direction and paved the way for the Pop art movement with its attention to popular imagery. Lifelong friends with much in common, Johns and Rauschenberg met in New York and grew up in the South in the 1930s and 1940s (Johns in South Carolina and Rauschenberg in Texas), and both served in the military - Johns in the Army and Rauschenberg in the Marines. In New York they shared studio space and were both represented by well-known gallery owner Leo Castelli. With the Vietnam War, feminism and the civil rights movement center stage, the cultural mood of the 1950s and 1960s in America was one of questioning, and occasionally open defiance, of traditional messages and meanings. Translated to the world of art, Johns and Rauschenberg questioned the authority of an artist or the art establishment to dictate meaning. By selecting common images from popular culture, they challenged the fixed attitudes toward what could be considered art and allowed individual viewer experiences to create an infinite variety of meanings inspired by the Dada artist Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) who revolutionized the art world with his "ready-mades" - a series of found objects presented as finished works of art. The new museum facility, an adaptive re-use project designed and engineered by Stevens and Wilkinson, opened on July 18, 1998 and allows the Museum to showcase its substantial art collection. The Museum currently has over 20,000 square feet of gallery space that permits it to bring a wider range of traveling exhibitions to South Carolina, as well as to provide the necessary space for the proper presentation of its collection, which numbers over 7,000 objects. South Carolina now has access to larger traveling art exhibitions - not previously possible because of limited space in the previous facility. The current building has well-designed workspaces, storage for collections, art studios, 150-seat public auditorium, art library, Museum shop and public reception spaces. Visit the Columbia Museum of Art at : http://www.columbiamuseum.org/ Click on logo below to add this article to your favorite Social Website ~ |
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