When
Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008) made
Bed in 1955, he had just moved into a studio next to
Jasper Johns, who produced his iconic painting
Flag in the same year.
Bed may well be a product of the productive rapport shared by the two artists, who were also linked by their resistance to
Abstract Expressionism at
the height of its popularity. Rauschenberg, who once claimed that “a
pair of socks is no less suitable to make a painting with than wood, nails, turpentine, oil, and fabric,” was committed to absurdity, anti-art, the multiplicity of meaning, and the messy chaos of everyday life. Bed exemplifies what Rauschenberg called a
Combine Painting, which combines painting and sculpture. Painting on
common materials in place of the traditional canvas, and mounting those materials on a stretcher hung vertically on the wall, Rauschenberg frustrates numerous conventions of modern painting and its ideas of medium specificity. Like many great artists, his work challenges conventional categories and projects like
The Art Genome Project.