Robert Rauschenberg: Lurid Attack of the Monsters

Robert Rauschenberg’s approach to art making was expansive and generous and his works reveal his sharp-eyed observations. Harvesting imagery and ideas from the daily news, politics, popular culture, and from his vast circle of friends and fellow artists, he created works which were a prescient harbinger of today’s culture of sampling and remix. [....]

The Lurid Attack of the Monsters from the Postal News Aug. 1875 (Kabal American Zephyr) (1981) is part of a sculpture series inspired by the illustrations of the 19th century Japanese printmaker Tsukioka Yoshitoshi. In 1875 Yoshitoshi made prints for the Yūbin hōchi shinbun newspaper to illustrate crime, politics, and public interest stories. Rauschenberg’ cannon-like work features a collage of images ranging from nature scenes to boats at sea, John Lennon playing piano, skydivers, and soldiers wearing gas masks. Lurid Attack is rather foreboding, confronting viewers with its low-slung, precarious length and menacing maw-like row of toothy saws bent under tension..

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website.