Pioneering US artist's work back in Beijing after his passing

Recalling his first exhibition in China a year earlier, US artist Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008) said in a New York Times interview in 1986 that people from the National Art Museum of China - where his show was to open - were so excited at his idea that they kept providing him more exhibition space.

The additional costs of transportation and security put him under huge pressure.

The final display at the Beijing-based museum included 47 huge paintings and sculpture installations.

The three-week exhibition over November and December of 1985 attracted more than 300,000 visitors, many of whom saw their first pieces of Western contemporary art, which were very different from the academic artworks they were used to.

Through this groundbreaking exhibition, Rauschenberg - hailed as one of the United States' most influential artists - was engaged in the cultivation of China's emerging generation of contemporary artists.

It was one of the events that gave rise to the '85 avant-garde art movement.

Since then, the Chinese contemporary art scene has evolved radically.

Many young artists who saw his show three decades ago are today prominent art figures with international recognition.

Now, Rauschenberg's art has returned to China through his second exhibition here. It reviews his communication with the country and invites people to look at the world through his vision.

The retrospective show at the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing's 798 art district is seen by center director Philip Tinari as one of the most important shows in the gallery.

Among the works at the Rauschenberg in China show is a set of color photos titled Studies for Chinese Summerhall, which the artist took during his first visit to China in 1982, and which were also on show at the 1985 exhibition.

The pictures were taken during a five-week trip during the Rauschenberg Overseas Cultural Interexchange, a project he launched in the early 1980s to gather inspiration through traveling and exhibiting in 10 countries.

Through the lens of his Hassleblad camera, Rauschenberg offers glimpses into the daily lives of ordinary Chinese in the early phase of the reform and opening-up, with a focus on the changing urban landscape.

In a Chinese catalog for his 1985 exhibition, Rauschenberg wrote - based on his wide travels and collaborations in many places - that he believes one-on-one contact through art is a powerful way to promote peace.

"Maybe art is not well understood by people at the beginning, but it is educational, interesting and inspiring," he said.

He added that being able to share distinctive features brings people closer. And he says it was not until he came to see the differences that he became an artist who knew how to look at the world, and the Rauschenberg Overseas Cultural Interexchange provided him the opportunity to observe these differences.

Christy MacLear, executive director of the New York-based Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, who was at the opening of the current exhibition, says the artist is "well known as a champion who believes that art transcends words, boundaries and borders".

His trip to China introduced him to the beauty and majesty of its culture and people, she says, and his travels to Cuba, Russia and Mexico engaged different cultures, making him a "global artist", which was rare in the 1980s.

The current exhibition also celebrates the opening to the Chinese public of Rauschenberg's massive piece, The 1/4 Miles or 2 Furlong Piece, which he created and kept revising over 17 years, starting from 1981. Two furlongs refer to the distance between his studio and home on Florida's Captiva Island.

The 305-meter-long work, comprising 190 parts, was last shown in Massachusetts in 1999.

The 1/4 Miles or 2 Furlong Piece can be seen as a retrospective landmark work, encompassing almost all of Rauschenberg's themes and explorations of different techniques in his portfolio.

Not only did he challenge the distinctive boundary between painting and sculpture by placing all kinds of daily-use objects in a collage, but he also examined the issue of equality and the border between art and life by recycling junk in his artworks.

Wu Zuguang (1917-2003), the prominent playwright, said in a prelude to Rauschenberg's 1985 show that he is "a truly great artist with enormous imagination, and is also a person who breaks through the fence of art and leverages himself to the ranks of thinkers and philosophers".

linqi@chinadaily.com.cn