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Indepth Arts News:
"Robert Rauschenberg: Synapsis Shuffle
"
2000-06-29 until 2000-10-08
Whitney Museum of Art
New York, NY,
USA
The Whitney Museum presents Synapsis Shuffle (1999), a
monumental new work by Robert Rauschenberg. In its complete
form, Synapsis Shuffle comprises fifty-two 9 1/2-foot-high panels
with photographic imagery, each panel varying in widths of up to 5
feet. The title and number of panels allude to a deck of cards, an
appropriate metaphor for this work's unique installation method:
each time it is installed in a new location, it is meant to be
shuffled by a different person or persons into new compositions
of no more than seven and no fewer than three panels. As a
result, this perpetually refreshed work reflects the installer's
vision as well as the artist's.
The extraordinary range of imagery in
Synapsis Shuffle, from the banal to the exotic, derives from
photographs Rauschenberg took during his global
travels--snapshots of street life and buildings, images culled
from the media and advertising, and lyric passages of the natural
world. As much a piece of Installation or Performance art as it is a
painting or sculpture, Synapsis Shuffle is a magnificent example
of the use of chance or participatory elements that has been a
hallmark of Rauschenberg's career.
Synapsis Shuffle is a promised gift from Leonard A. Lauder,
chairman, Whitney Museum of American Art.
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