Robert Rauschenberg, Fetticio Personale photographed in Pincio Gardens, Rome, 1953. © Robert Rauschenberg Foundation

Artist Robert Rauschenberg’s radical objective was to operate “in the gap between art and life”. His work crossed boundaries, pioneering combinations of media and genres, techniques and forms of representation through print, painting, sculpture, appropriation, performance and electronic arts. Recent major retrospectives in London, New York and San Francisco confirm that, 11 years after his death in 2008, this remorselessly innovative figure remains a strong creative influence, especially on young artists. But before his fame became global, one of Rauschenberg's first solo exhibitions took place in Florence in 1953—and it culminated in a gesture that has become an art legend. British writer and art historian Martin Holman tells the story.

Martin Holman's work has appeared in the exhibition catalogues of public and private galleries and in leading art magazines and newspapers since 1979, among them Art Monthly, Art Review, Cura, Daily Telegraph, and Frieze. He has collaborated closely with leading figures in Italy's postwar avantgarde and the first one-person exhibitions in the UK by Giorgio Griffa, Pino Pascali, Michelangelo Pistoletto and Gilberto Zorio. His monographs about the British painters Terry Setch RA and Graham Crowley were published by Lund Humphries, which also published his book about sculptor Richard Rome in March 2011. During his career, Martin Holman has worked at the National Gallery, London; been head of fundraising at London’s Whitechapel Art Gallery; and involved in exhibitions at Camden Arts Centre.

This talk is free to attend. Unfortunately PRAKSIS is not able to offer step free access at this time.

This talk is part of Painting Project: Out Looking Inwards, PRAKSIS's thirteenth residency which has been developed with artists Robert Bordo and Robert Holyhead. The residency is held in collaboration with LNM (The Norwegian Painters Society). For more information on the residency please click here.

PRAKSIS and LNM offer thanks to OCA (Office for Contemporary Art Norway) for providing the use of their apartment at Ekely – enabling the participation of an increased number of international residents.