Robert Rauschenberg: Thirty-Four Illustrations for Dante’S Inferno Leah Dickerman Is the Marlene Hess Curator of Painting and Sculpture ARTBOOK | D.A.P
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Published by The Museum of Modern Art Contributors 11 West 53 Street Robin Coste Lewis is a Provost’s Fellow in Poetry and Visual Studies at New York, New York 10019 the University of Southern California and the author of Voyage of the Sable www.moma.org Venus (2015), winner of the National Book Award for Poetry. Distributed in the United States and Canada by Robert Rauschenberg: Thirty-Four Illustrations for Dante’s Inferno Leah Dickerman is The Marlene Hess Curator of Painting and Sculpture ARTBOOK | D.A.P. at The Museum of Modern Art, New York. 155 Sixth Avenue, 2nd Floor etween 1958 and 1960, Robert Rauschenberg made robert New York, New York 10013 drawings for each of the thirty-four cantos, or sections, Kevin Young is Director of the Schomburg Center for Research in www.artbook.com B Black Culture and the author of eleven books of poetry and prose, most of Dante’s fourteenth-century poem Inferno by using a novel recently Blue Laws: Selected & Uncollected Poems 1995–2015 (2016), which Distributed outside the United States and Canada by technique to transfer photographic reproductions from was long-listed for the National Book Award. Thames & Hudson Ltd. rauschenberg 181A High Holborn magazines or newspapers onto paper. Acquired by The London WC1V 7QX Museum of Modern Art soon after it was completed, the www.thamesandhudson.com resulting work is his most sustained exercise in the medium of drawing and a testament to Rauschenberg’s desire to Front cover: Robert Rauschenberg. Canto XIV: Circle Seven, Round 3, the Violent against God, Nature, and Art from the series Thirty-Four Illustrations bring his experience of the contemporary world into his for Dante’s Inferno. Solvent transfer drawing, watercolor, gouache, art. The drawings weave together meditations on public 3 1 pencil, and red chalk on paper, 14⁄8 x 11⁄2 in. (36.5 x 29.2 cm). and private spheres, politics and inner life. Above all, they pay homage to creativity in The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Given anonymously dialogue: each drawing is a conversation with Dante across the centuries. This volume Back cover: Robert Rauschenberg, 1958. Detail of a photograph by includes newly commissioned poems by Robin Coste Lewis and Kevin Young that offer Dante’s Jasper Johns. Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Archives, New York contemporary responses to Rauschenberg’s celebrated series and an essay by MoMA robertrobert curator Leah Dickerman that explores its making in depth. 104 pp.; 44 color and black-and-white reproductions Inferno rauschenbergrauschenberg Printed in Turkey Thirty-Four Illustrations for Dante’s Inferno isbn: 978-1-63345-029-5 robert rauschenberg Thirty-Four Illustrations for Dante’s Inferno Essay by Leah Dickerman Poetry by Robin Coste Lewis Kevin Young the museum of modern art New York mmxvii This publication is made possible through a grant from the Photograph Credits contents Robert Rauschenberg Foundation. Individual works of art appearing in this publication may be protected by copyright in the United States of America, or Major support is provided by the Riva Castleman Fund for elsewhere, and may not be reproduced in any form without the 7 Publications in the Department of Drawings and Prints, permission of the rights holders. In reproducing the images Foreword established by The Derald H. Ruttenberg Foundation. contained herein, the Museum obtained the permission of the Glenn D. Lowry rights holders whenever possible. Should the Museum have Published by The Museum of Modern Art been unable to locate a rights holder, notwithstanding good- 11 West 53 Street, New York, New York 10019 faith efforts, it requests that any contact information concerning 8 www.moma.org such rights holders be forwarded so that they may be contacted Canto by Canto: An Introduction for future editions. Produced by the Department of Publications, Leah Dickerman The Museum of Modern Art, New York Courtesy Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution: Christopher Hudson, Publisher figs. 1, 2. Courtesy The Brant Foundation, Greenwich, 24 Chul R. Kim, Associate Publisher Connecticut: fig. 4. Courtesy Moderna Museet, Stockholm: David Frankel, Editorial Director fig. 3. The Museum of Modern Art, Department of Imaging Harrowing Marc Sapir, Production Director Services, photo Thomas Griesel: p. 6, pp. 26–92; photo John a short history of Hell Wronn: fig. 8. Courtesy Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Kevin Young Edited by Maria Marchenkova Archives, New York: back cover; p. 2; p. 8; figs. 6, 7. Courtesy Designed by Amanda Washburn True Temper Sports: fig. 8. © 2017 The Andy Warhol Production by Marc Sapir Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./Artists Rights Society 26 Printed and bound by Ofset Yapimevi, Istanbul (ARS), New York: fig. 4. Poems for Rauschenberg’s Dante Drawings This book is typeset in Vendetta. The paper is 150 gsm Garda Matt Ultra. Front cover: Robert Rauschenberg. Canto XIV: Circle Seven, cantos i–xiv Round 3, the Violent against God, Nature, and Art from the series The Dark Wood © 2017 The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Poems by Thirty-Four Illustrations for Dante’s Inferno. See p. 53 Kevin Young Robin Coste Lewis © 2017 Robin Coste Lewis. Essay and poems by Kevin Young © 2017 Kevin Young Back cover: Robert Rauschenberg, 1958. Detail of a photograph cantos xv–xxxi by Jasper Johns. Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Archives, Dante Comes to America: 20 January 2017 All works by Robert Rauschenberg © Robert Rauschenberg New York An Erasure of 17 Cantos from Ciardi’s Inferno Foundation, New York. Certain illustrations are covered by claims After Robert Rauschenberg to copyright noted in the Photograph Credits. P. 2: Rauschenberg working on a solvent transfer drawing in Robin Coste Lewis his Front Street studio, New York, 1958. Work in background Distributed in the United States and Canada by is Untitled (1955). Photograph: Jasper Johns. Photograph cantos xxxii–xxxiv ARTBOOK | D.A.P. Collection. Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Archives, The Dark Wood 155 Sixth Avenue, 2nd Floor, New York, New York 10013 New York. Kevin Young www.artbook.com P. 6: Robert Rauschenberg. Canto XXXI: The Central Pit of Distributed outside the United States and Canada by Malebolge, the Giants (detail) from the series Thirty-Four 94 Thames & Hudson Ltd. Illustrations for Dante’s Inferno. See p. 87 Canto Summaries for Dante’s Inferno 181a High Holborn, London WC1V 7QX www.thamesandhudson.com Michael Sonnabend Library of Congress Control Number: 2017936943 104 ISBN: 978-1-63345-029-5 Trustees of The Museum of Modern Art Printed in Turkey Foreword Dante Alighieri was in his mid-thirties when he began The ghostly images aptly evoke the shades of writing the Inferno, as Robert Rauschenberg was when he Dante’s world. Yet they are also sharply contemporary, began working on his series of drawings illustrating each referencing current events, creating an allusive relay canto of Dante’s epic journey through the netherworld. between the classical world and Rauschenberg’s present. Rauschenberg worked on it in strict chronological order, Like Dante’s Inferno before them, they weave together canto by canto as he read, and the project occupied him— meditations on both public and private spheres, politics even when he paused his work on it—for over two and a and inner life. It is perhaps the searching of an artist who, half years. The result is Rauschenberg’s most sustained approaching the end of youth, is pushing himself to exercise in the medium of drawing. It was surprising to greater wisdom and comprehension of the world around observers when the series was first displayed in 1960, him. And it is a poignant and haunting vision of hell, of after avant-garde painters in New York had embraced souls condemned to eternal suffering by sins both great abstraction for almost two decades, that Rauschenberg, and small, of human imperfection and vulnerability. a rising star, had chosen to journey into the symbolic Above all, Rauschenberg’s Dante drawings pay universe of Dante’s Hell. Acquired by The Museum of homage to creativity in dialogue. The ancient Roman Modern Art soon after its making through an anony- poet Virgil’s Aeneid was both source and model for Dante’s mous gift, Rauschenberg’s Thirty-Four Illustrations for tale. Virgil accompanies Dante, as mentor and guide, on Dante’s Inferno is now among the most celebrated works his journey into hell. Rauschenberg chose Dante for his in our drawings collection. It is with pride that we pub- own odyssey; each drawing is a conversation with the lish this volume on the occasion of our retrospective of poet across the centuries. the artist’s career, Robert Rauschenberg: Among Friends. Now, we have asked two extraordinary poets of Rauschenberg was always a great experimenter. our own time—Kevin Young and Robin Coste Lewis— For the Dante series, rather than making conventional to offer their response, in conversation with each other, drawings, he used a novel technique that allowed him to Rauschenberg’s Thirty-Four Illustrations for Dante’s to capture images from the media-saturated reality of Inferno. We are delighted to be able to share their work: a the contemporary world. He moistened clippings from poem for each drawing. photo-illustrated magazines with solvent and rubbed We would like to extend our sincere thanks to their backs with an implement to transfer them to the writers, including Leah Dickerman, The Marlene drawing paper. He then added washes of watercolor Hess Curator of Painting and Sculpture, MoMA; to and gouache, touches of crayon, chalk, and pencil, com- our Department of Drawings and Prints and our bining traditional fine art materials with these migrant Department of Publications; and to the Sonnabend fam- glyphs from the media world. He described the results ily.