Robert Rauschenberg

Acquired directly from the artist by the present owner

New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; Houston, Menil Collection and Museum of Fine Arts, Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao; Cologne, Museum Ludwig, Robert Rauschenberg, a Retrospective, September 1997- May 1999, p. 540, illustrated in color 
Ferrera, Italy, Palazzo dei Diamanti, Robert Rauschenberg, February-June 2004

This work is in very good condition overall. There is very minor surface soiling. Framed.
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Aquavitae is among the most intriguing of the sixteen pieces in Rauschenberg's Arcadian Retreat series. The series is notable for its interest in, and adaptation of, the ancient technique of fresco; Aquavitae, in its juxtaposition of photographs from Rauschenberg's travels with scenes from New York, is illustrative of the artist's mastery of this technique. In its combination of the old and the new, this piece  literalizes the artist's own continual development throughout his career.

Between 1984 and 1991, Rauschenberg travelled the world with his project, the Rauschenberg Overseas Cultural Interchange (ROCI). The purpose of his travels demonstrated his interest in other cultures, other spaces, and even other times. The result was artwork which continued to push the boundaries of process and technique and demonstrated his continued fascination with adaptation and innovation.

The Arcadian Retreats series takes its name from the ancient Greek civilization of Arcadia, idealized by poets as a paradise on earth, and was begun following Rauschenberg's 1996 trip to Turkey. The images in Aquavitae (translation: "water of life") were culled from Rauschenberg's personal photographs of quotidian life including ancient Turkish ruins, a car wash near his New York studio on Lafayette Street and a faucet emerging from a city sidewalk. Although these images are from disparate sources that mirror the artist's peripatetic pace, Rauschenberg's collage-work calls attention to aesthetic and formal commonalities: the blue skies seen through the Turkish ruins are cast against similar skies reflected in the window of a city apartment. The yellow-and-blue of a flag hanging from a window are echoed in patterned laundry.  Rauschenberg utilized the fragmented quality of the ancient frescoes—the remains, the blanks, and the sometimes indecipherable combinations—and makes it thoroughly modern, marrying the ancient technique with his own artistic sensibility. Aquavitae is, at once, a personal image that evokes Rauschenberg's own movements and a piece that makes a statement about the nature of the globalized world as informed by projects like ROCI—where unexpected connections are made and both time and space can be compressed.

This apposition of the old and the new are central not only to the subject of Aquavitae, but also to the process with which the piece was created. Rauschenberg's Combines made use of found elements such as urban detritus and pieces of the everyday while the elements of the frescos come from the artist's personal, found photographs. For the frescos, the artist worked  with the studios of Adamson Editions and Safftech;  there he tore, cut, and collaged prints of his photographs, layering them onto wet plaster in the classical fresco technique, and adding paint and wax. The layers add a patina of age onto the pieces, enhancing its sense of temporal confusion. Although later pieces in the Arcadian Retreat series were made using a PVC substrate, the use of plaster in Aquavitae represents a more faithful engagement with the technique, and emphasizes Rauschenberg's commitment to artistic experimentation. Aquavitae melds classic technique with classic Rauschenberg, and emerges as something innovative, important, and beautiful.