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Coin (Jammer), 1976, sewn fabric and tin cans, 226 \u00d7 115 \u00d7 36 cm. Courtesy Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, New York<\/p>\nThe Menil Collection gives centre stage to the proto-Pop star\u2019s \u2018minor\u2019 fabric works <\/p>\n
There is an air of austerity to the nearly three dozen fabric works in the Menil Collection\u2019s galleries, made by Robert Rauschenberg during the 1970s on blustery Captiva Island, Florida, where the formerly New York-based artist moved following his Castelli-finessed market success and award-winning Venice Biennale presentation. Large but quiet pieces like the wall-mounted assemblage Untitled (Venetian) (1973), which features a canvas canopy he found bearing the logo of the construction manufacturer Caterpillar Inc., and the sculpture Sant\u2019Agnese (Venetian) (1973), in which a diaphanous mosquito net is stretched like drying laundry between two chairs \u2013 evoke the dailiness of manual and domestic labour. Vibrant selections from the \u2018Hoarfrosts\u2019 series (1974\u201376) such as the electric blue Untitled and lemon-yellow Sulphur Bank (both 1975) screen and subdue Rauschenberg\u2019s signature collages of mass media imagery beneath utilitarian-looking patches of cloth, cardboard and paper.<\/p>\n
Pieces from the \u2018Jammers\u2019 series (1975\u201376), readymades that most explicitly mark Rauschenberg\u2019s \u2018turn to austerity\u2019 (as art historian Yve-Alain Bois put it), stand like makeshift shelters of textiles, rattan and string. Per the Menil\u2019s catalogue, they \u2018consist of such simple elements\u2019 that they could be \u2018rolled up\u2019 and transported across the US \u2018in the back of a station wagon\u2019. In one such work, Pilot (1975), the inclusion of a selvedge bearing red \u2018Made in Switzerland\u2019 stamps suggests that the artist intended to preserve all he could \u2013 and alter as little as possible \u2013 of the castoffs at his disposal.<\/p>\n
Coin (Jammer), 1976, sewn fabric and tin cans, 226 \u00d7 115 \u00d7 36 cm. Courtesy Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, New York<\/p>\n
According to the catalogue, Rauschenberg wished for his fabric experiments of this period to \u2018critique the \u201cexcesses\u201d of imagery in modern life\u2019 by way of reduction, in contrast to the accretive approach he took to making his celebrated \u2018Combines\u2019 (1954\u201364). Those formidable painted surfaces, bombarded with found objects like bedding, American flags and rubbish from the street, might be seen as \u2018receptor surfaces\u2019 (as critic Leo Steinberg described them), on which slews of \u2018data\u2019 have been entered. Rauschenberg\u2019s move to foreground textiles tracks with his lifelong attempts to reinvent his visual grammar following his early career success. It also signalled his sensitivity to the material and processual concerns raised by contemporaries like Eva Hesse and Tina Girouard, some West Coast feminist artists such as Miriam Schapiro, and the work of the Arte Povera movement in Italy. What resulted were spare and fragile-looking structures erected in a plain style that reviewers from the 1970s onwards have criticised as barren, flimsy and confusing.<\/p>\n
As one of over 30 Rauschenberg Centennial exhibitions staged globally from 2025 to 2026, the Menil\u2019s show nuances the legacy of the proto-Pop art star by presenting a medium-and time-bound grouping of his \u2018minor\u2019 works on their own terms. Seen independently of his previous claims to fame, these ragged gems bearing at most dustings of appropriated imagery and text are both sympathetic in their shabbiness and conceptually fertile. As found and repurposed objects, they retain their functional aspect while flirting noncommittally with signification, like a bed sheet being flown as a flag. In their restraint, they evince what minimal alteration is needed \u2013 a tug here, a fold there \u2013 to turn mundane materials into a sculpture. By giving centre stage to a short rattan pole cradled in an unevenly woven fabric sling, or a grubby lace curtain hung from a long piece of driftwood, the Menil\u2019s exhibition trims away not only excess data but also superfluous assertions of significance, revealing what breadth and freedom lie within the minor key.<\/p>\n
Fabric Works of the 1970s at The Menil Collection, Houston, 19 September \u2013 1 March<\/a><\/p>\n Read next The many ways of R.H. Quaytman<\/a><\/p>\n Jenny Wu<\/a>Reviews<\/a>February 25, 2026ArtReview<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Menil Collection gives centre stage to the proto-Pop star\u2019s \u2018minor\u2019 fabric works There is an air of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":453484,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[6225,6485,6486,1120,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-453483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=453483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453483\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/453484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=453483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=453483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=453483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}