Kenneth Snelson: World Trade Center With Jersey Shore (1980)

I begyour indulgence.

In order to presentKenneth Snelson’s full image, World Trade Center andJersey Shore here, I neededto turn it on its side. 

I firstsaw this photograph in December at Gagosian Madision Avenue’s  exhibition of works from Robert Rauschenberg’sart collection.

It was a remarkable show– a real journey through the artist’s mind -- his enlivened, enlightened eye and other fivesenses.

I wasplanning on writing a survey of the collection’s high points, but  procrastinated; I thought it would be aboring (not to mention self-indulgent) imposition on readers planning their ownholiday highlights.

But thinking aboutthe show, I kept coming back in my mind's eye  to this remarkable photograph taken bythe famous abstract sculptor and tensegrity/floating compression inventorKenneth Snelson in 1980, using a 16” Cirkut camera.

I continued returning to thepicture for its formal beauty, its "ordinary grandeur," and the 100% accurate memoriesit recalls of a world which was my world, Robert Rauschenberg's world, and theworld of millions of Manhattan and metropolitan New Jersey residents: the waythat world looked and we thought was always supposed to look.

Snelson has written: “Myart is concerned with nature in its primary aspect, the patterns of physical forcesin three dimensional space.”

His sculpture showsthat “mission statement” in real time and spaces, but it’s fascinating andsurprising to see it clearly and elegiacally revealed here in frozen time andspace.


For me, thisphotograph is so real and beautiful, I could weep.  It makes Snelson’s other impressive work withthe motorized Cirkut (an Eastman Kodak camera I remember from summer campphotos when a hundred or so campers and counselors would be lined up on severalrows of risers, one sprinting kid always appearing at both ends of the toprow) seem superfluous.

Kenneth Snelson, World Trade CenterWith Jersey Shore, 1980,  15.5 " X 74  ",Silver print, 16 " Cirkut camera 


Dedicated to Caroline on her birthday.

(Ideal) Madison Avenue Saturday Excursion: Exhibition of the Private Collection of Robert Rauschenberg at Gagosian Gallery

Note:  It is difficult to imagine a more splendid way to spend a Saturday than visiting and viewing this exhibition at the Gagosian Gallery at 980 Madison Avenue.  The gallery press release which follows is incredibly enticing and promises a view into a superb collection of paintings and sculptures curated for his own pleasure and, I would imagine, with at least a slight nod toward posterity, by a master modern artist.

          With this exhibition, a posthumously published Robert Rauschenberg, the art and communication continues (mostly) unabated.

Andy Warhol:  Portrait of Robert Rauschenberg (1967)

NEW YORK, N.Y.- Gagosian Gallery, in collaboration with the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, presents “The Private Collection of Robert Rauschenberg,” selections from Rauschenberg's personal art collection. This is the first time that Rauschenberg’s collection has been publicly presented and that an artist’s collection has been exhibited at the gallery. It follows the acclaimed introductory survey exhibition of Rauschenberg’s own work presented at Gagosian West 21st Street in 2010. Proceeds from the collection help fund the endowment established for the Foundation’s philanthropic activities.

        An artist’s collection is a rare resource, charged with anecdotes of how and why and where works were acquired, as well as whether they represented epistemic interests, or they were used for reference in the creation of new works. This fascinating exhibition provides special insight into Rauschenberg’s broader inspirations as well as his friendships and affinities, the causes he supported, and his personal philanthropic initiatives.

Marcel Duchamp:  

Above: Bottlerack (detail of base) (1960 Duchamp-signed replica readymade)

Below:  Bottlerack (full view)(1920 Duchamp-signed replica readymade for Suzanne Duchamp)

          A game-changing figure in post-war American art, Rauschenberg bridged all traditional boundaries between medium and genre and forever changed the relationship between artist, image, and viewer. He quickly identified as his driving energies and motivations the incidental, the immediate, and the perception of a presence greater than his own artistic virtuosity. Rauschenberg truly believed in the communicative and transformative potential of art and throughout his life he devoted his creative energies equally to artistic and philanthropic activities. In 1970 he founded Change, Inc. to assist artists financially in emergency situations, and in the 1980s he inaugurated ROCI (Rauschenberg Overseas Culture Interchange), a pattern-breaking, collaborative, global exhibition project that forged entirely new artistic territory in international dialogue and peace-keeping. In 1990 he formed the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation to benefit and promote awareness of the causes and groups close to his heart. Activities included educational art programs, environmental and humanitarian campaigns, as well as grants and direct assistance to artistic collaborations. Since Rauschenberg’s death in 2008, the Foundation is responsible for maintaining this legacy as well as the expansion of philanthropic activities consistent with his personal view that “Art can change the world.”

Jasper Johns, Map, 1960


          In addition to his philanthropic spirit and his championing of positive change, Rauschenberg was also acknowledged to be one of the most generous and inquisitive artists of his time, passionately engaged in, and supportive of, the art of others. Over a lifetime, he acquired through exchanges, gifts, and purchases, an astonishingly rich collection of artworks by seminal forbears (Joseph Beuys, Marcel Duchamp, René Magritte, Edweard Muybridge); a wide circle of friends, including choreographers and composers (Trisha Brown, John Cage, John Chamberlain, Merce Cunningham, Oyvind Fahlstrom, Willem de Kooning, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, James Rosenquist, Karl Heinz Stockhausen, Jean Tinguely, Cy Twombly, Andy Warhol, Susan Weil); and younger colleagues (David Byrne, Robert Mapplethorpe, Brice Marden, Bruce Nauman, Ed Ruscha).

Ed Ruscha:  Romeo, With Contraceptive Ghost (1980)

          Some of these artworks—such as Duchamp’s Bottlerack (1960), Cage’s original scores, Marden’s Choice (1967), and Ruscha’s Romeo, With Contraceptive Ghost (1980), represent milestones in recent contemporary art history; others, such as Warhol’s Portrait of Robert Rauschenberg (1967), John Chamberlain’s jewel-like sculpture Homer (1960) and Trisha Brown’s vigorous notations are of a different order, intimate and highly personal, though no less potent. Whether masterpiece or token in the general order of things, Rauschenberg ascribed equal importance to all and this exhibition of the art with which he surrounded himself seeks to reflect the breadth, openness and sincerity of his vision.

          A catalogue of selected works from the collection is currently being prepared by Gagosian Gallery and the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation.

Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg in his Pearl Street studio, NY, ca. 1956
© Jasper Johns/ Licensed by VAGA, New York