Innovations in Context

How to be original in a world that is already filled with ideas, notions, and cultural identities, is a daunting task. However, we find that everyday people are striking out and creating new paths, concepts, and innovations. Robert Rauschenberg was one of those people. By rejecting the abstractionists’ seriousness and embracing ordinary objects instead, Robert engaged people to look at the everyday, not as ordinary, but as extraordinary. Here lies a tribute to the originality of Robert Rauschenberg and the other artists who sought to create in ways unlike those before them. Much of their art reflects the context of their time, the post war culture needed to deal with its intensity and aftermath, the increasing modernization and rising pop culture, and the oncoming expression within the art world that is contemporary art that we know today. “Innovation in Context” challenges the viewer to see art in its documentary role, in the context of its period, and to ask yourself not what do you see in art, but what do you see art do?