Installation view of Robert Rauschenberg: ROCI Works from the National Gallery of Art, Academy Art Museum, Easton, Maryland, December 5, 2015 – March 6, 2016. All artwork by Robert Rauschenberg: Cuban Acre / ROCI CUBA, 1988; Narcissus / ROCI USA (Wax Fire Works), 1990; Untitled (Tire for Rose), 1995; Seminole Host / ROCI USA (Wax Fire Works), 1990; and Tibetan Garden Song / ROCI TIBET, 1996. Photo by George Holzer.
Rauschenberg Overseas Culture Interchange (ROCI) Inspires Exhibitions at the Academy Art Museum
The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation is pleased to announce the opening of Robert Rauschenberg: ROCI Works from the National Gallery of Art and Robert Rauschenberg: Kyoto, Sri Lanka, and Thai Drawings at the Academy Art Museum (AAM), Easton, Maryland. Also on view at the AAM is the The ROCI Road to Peace: Experiments in the Unfamiliar, an exhibition curated by the 2014 winner of the Robert Rauschenberg Emerging Curator Competition, Nicole Bray. The Emerging Curator competition, a partnership between the foundation and Artsy, received proposals from Brazil, France, Iran, Peru, Puerto Rico, Romania, the United Kingdom, and the United States. All three exhibitions are on view at the Museum through March 6, 2016, and at Artsy.
The Rauschenberg Overseas Culture Interchange (ROCI, 1984–1991), focused primarily on countries around the world where artistic dialogue had been strained or suppressed with the aim of promoting cross-cultural understanding through art. Bray’s exhibition envisions what a ROCI of today might look like, specifically examining how contemporary art utilizes technology to challenge and transcend geographic borders. Included are works by contemporary artists —Fikret Atay, Yto Barrada, Alfredo Jaar, Jawshing Arthur Liou, Pedro Reyes, Sebastian Schmieg, and Malgosia Woźnica—who share Rauschenberg’s belief in the power of art to catalyze positive social change. Also included digitally are Bray’s selections from an international call for student artists whose works share in the original spirit of ROCI. The emerging artists selected by Bray are Andrew Dines, Matthew Flores, Jeffrey Gomez, Ana Lucia Romero Rivero, and Ziyang Wu.
The exhibitions are accompanied by a catalogue that includes contributions by AAM curator, Anke Van Wagenberg, Bray, and Donald Saff, the Artistic Director of ROCI. Saff’s interview for the Robert Rauschenberg Oral History project, conducted by the foundation in partnership with the Columbia Center for Oral History Research, can be found on the foundation website. On January 29th at 6:00 pm. Saff will speak on his longtime collaboration with the artist as part of the Kittredge-Wilson lecture series at the AAM.