The exhibition “Robert Rauschenberg: Fabric Works of the 1970s” (Robert Rauschenberg: Fabric Works of the 1970s) is now open at The Menil Collection.
The museum has announced that it includes significant loans from museum collections and the artist’s foundation, and it will be the first museum exhibition to explore Rauschenberg’s innovative use of fabric during this period.
It was organized to mark the artist’s centenary, in collaboration with the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, and will be open to the public until March 1, 2026.
Born in Port Arthur, Texas, a small coastal city ninety miles east of Houston, Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008) is an influential figure in the history of modern and contemporary art.
Renowned for his ability to break down the barriers between art and life, he expanded the very definition of art. After a brief stint at the University of Texas at Austin and his service in the Navy, he established himself in the New York art world of the late 1950s.
In 1964, the press hailed him as the most important American artist since Jackson Pollock.
View this post on Instagram
In the 1970s, the artist explored the expressive potential of textiles, from sheer silk and delicate lace to rustic cotton gauze and stained canvases, in multiple series that celebrate the formal properties of fabric and present an unexpected variety of artistic gestures.
The artist draped, folded, suspended, and supported this flexible material in dynamic, overlapping physical compositions. In that decade, Rauschenberg also began spending more time away from New York, at his home on Captiva Island, on the Gulf Coast of Florida.
There, he began to explore more deeply how woven materials retain printed images, move with the air, respond to gravity, and capture color and light. Building on the innovations of minimalism, Rauschenberg adopted flexible, open, sail-like structures, characterized by vibrant colors within a reduced formal vocabulary.
Rebecca Rabinow, Director of The Menil Collection, stated: “Robert Rauschenberg was a close friend of the Menils. He met the museum’s founders, John and Dominique de Menil, in the early 1960s. He attended the museum’s opening in 1987 and subsequently was the subject of several major exhibitions organized by the curators of the Menil Collection. We are proud to continue this legacy and to work with the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation to commemorate the artist’s centennial, paying attention to an intriguing yet understudied facet of Rauschenberg’s work.”
The exhibition “Fabric Works of the 1970s” presents important series that Rauschenberg created during this period, using techniques and materials that evoke notions of ephemerality, sensuality, and ambiguity.
All information at www.menil.org.
The exhibition “Robert Rauschenberg: Fabric Works of the 1970s” will be open until March 1 of this year. Photo courtesy of The Menil Collection
In detail
The exhibition: Robert Rauschenberg: Fabric Works of the 1970s
When: until March 1, 2026
Where: The Menil Collection
More information: www.menil.org
