Tate Modern: Rauschenberg

I am unconvinced by the Rauschenberg Exhibition but entirely willing to accept that the fault is mine.

According to the Observer ‘Robert Rauschenberg is America’s Leonardo – ceaselessly inventive, a mind in perpetual revolution. That is the revelation of this exhilarating show’

And it is blindingly obvious that he is the inspiration for any number of current artists. The link between his “bed” and that of Tracy Emin, or his “goat” and Damien Hirst’s various formaldehyde animals is clear, but rather sad;y the technology means the latter are much easier to appreciate.

Rauschenberg blazed a new trail for art in the second half of the twentieth century.

The landmark exhibition at the Tate celebrates his extraordinary six-decade career, taking you on a dazzling adventure through modern art in the company of a truly remarkable artist. The thing that strikes the visitor and stays with you is the range of his work.

From paintings including flashing lights to a stuffed angora goat, Rauschenberg’s appetite for incorporating things he found in the streets of New York knew no limits. Pop art silkscreen paintings of Kennedy sit alongside 1000 gallons of bentonite mud bubbling to its own rhythm. Rauschenberg even made a drawing which was sent to the moon.

Each room captures a different moment of this rich journey, from Rauschenberg’s early response to abstract expressionism to his final works saturated in images and colour. Seen together they show how Rauschenberg rethought the possibilities for art in our time.

This exhibition, organised in collaboration with The Museum of Modern Art, New York, is the first full-scale retrospective since the artist’s death in 2008 and is claimed by the Tate to be the ultimate Rauschenberg experience. Hmm. It is a chance to see these major international loans together in one place, while discovering the full story of an inspirational and much-loved artist whose influence is still felt today