Robert Rauschenberg: Autobiography

From 2016 to 2017 the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation collaborated with Williams College to build an art history course, Robert Rauschenberg: Art, Archives, and Exhibitions, around the artist and the archives, and to develop the exhibition, Robert Rauschenberg: Autobiography, to highlight the students’ research.

With unprecedented access to the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation archives, students enrolled in the fall 2016 art history course, Robert Rauschenberg: Art, Archives, and Exhibitions, led by Curator Lisa Dorin and Professor C. Ondine Chavoya, to research the artist’s life, work, and the often blurry intersections in-between. Their investigations culminated in the exhibition Robert Rauschenberg: Autobiography, which was a thematic exploration of the artist’s use of his body, performance collaborations, abiding love of animals, and interest in technology.

Choosing Rauschenberg’s monumental print Autobiography (1968) as the point of departure, the exhibition combined related archival documents and works of art that speak to Rauschenberg’s life experiences. The exhibition brought together twenty-six original artworks with fifty-six archival objects primarily on loan from the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation.

Robert Rauschenberg: Autobiography was on view at the Williams College Museum of Art in Williamstown, Massachusetts, from March 17 to Aug. 20, 2017.

Read more about this exhibition >