Thursday, June 21, 7:00 p.m.
$7, $5 for BMCM+AC members and students w/ID
Fine Arts Theatre, 36 Biltmore Ave. downtown Asheville
The Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center is pleased to present an exceptional film documentary about the American artist Robert Rauschenberg on Thursday, June 21st at 7:00pm at the Fine Arts Theatre in downtown Asheville. Robert Rauschenberg: Man at Work is director Chris Granlund’s fine profile of the enormously influential artist who spent some of his formative years as a young artist at Black Mountain College.
Robert Rauschenberg was born in Port Arthur, Texas in 1925. He was considering a career as a pharmacist when he joined the Marines, but in the Marine Corps he discovered that he could draw and developed an interest in representing ordinary objects and people. This interest was to change the face of contemporary art.
After WWII Robert Rauschenberg went to Paris where he met another American student named Sue Weil, whom he later married. Weil was already enrolled at Black Mountain College for the 1948 term, and Rauschenberg decided to use the GI Bill to enroll also. He attended Black Mountain College off and on between 1948 and 1952.
In the film, Rauschenberg talks about his childhood in Texas, his relationship with his father, and his early realization that he was an artist. He also recounts how he came to include a goat in one of his most famous works, and discusses for the first time on camera his relationship with fellow artist Jasper Johns and the subsequent break up of their friendship. The film depicts a vigorous and creative man prior to the deteriorating health issues that befell him beginning in 2001.
Interviews with friends, artists, and critics –including Calvin Tomkins, Barbara Rose, Leo Castelli and Ileana Sonnabend– help tell the story of his life and work. Robert Rauschenberg: Man at Work also examines his major work in progress (since 1981), The 1/4 Mile or Two Furlong Piece, which may be the largest art work in the world. Filmed in Rauschenberg’s home town of Port Arthur, Texas, at the artist's studio in Captiva, Florida, and in New York during the installation of his major 1997 retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum.
