Dada, Neo-Dada, and Rauschenberg

Abstract

Written in response to Robert Rauschenberg’s first solo exhibition in Paris, this article describes some of the works on show and seeks to differentiate Rauschenberg’s work from that of Marcel Duchamp and Neo-Dada, and also from the production of the French Assemblage/Nouveau Réaliste artists. It predates Rauschenberg’s controversial success at the 1964 Venice Biennale, where he won the Grand Prize for the best foreign painting.

Keywords:

• American painting
• Robert Rauschenberg
• Marcel Duchamp
• Yves Tanguy
• Niki de Saint Phalle
• David Tudor
• Dada
• Surrealism
• Neo-Dada
• Nouveau Réalisme

Notes

1 Galerie Daniel Cordier. We had previously seen works by Rauschenberg at the inaugural Paris Biennale in 1959 and at the 1960 Surrealism exhibition.

2 Our Rauschenberg quotations are taken from the notes we took during the course of these interviews. Translator’s note: They are given in this text as back translations.

3 Translator’s note: K 27946 changed to K 27946 S in keeping with the title used by the Philadelphia Museum of Art (where the work is conserved) and numerous publications.

4 Interview with J. J. Sweeney on US television in 1955. Translator’s note: For a transcript of the interview, see ed. James Nelson, Wisdom. Conversations with the Elder Wise Men of Our Day (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1958), pp. 89–99. However, Duchamp is quoted by the translator here from another version, published in ed. Michel Sanouillet and Elmer Peterson, The Essential Writings of Marcel Duchamp (London: Thames & Hudson, 1975) because they correspond more closely to the French quotations from Le Marchand du Sel supplied by Choay, of which they appear to be a back-translation.

5 Bulletin of the Museum of Modern Art, Vol. VIII, p. 4–5, cited in Salt Seller: The Writings of Marcel Duchamp.

6 Salt Seller: The Writings of Marcel Duchamp

7 Galerie J, May 17–June 10, 1961.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Françoise Choay

Translated from French by Richard George Elliott Originally published as “Dada, neo-dada et Rauschenberg,” Art International (20 October 1961): 82-84, 88.