Robert Rauschenberg, Signs

                                              Robert Rauschenberg, Signs, 1970, screen-print








Robert Rauschenberg was born on the 22nd of October 1925 and was 45 when he created this particular piece of work. The piece is influenced from events happening around him in his country involving politics. It is used to reflect on main political events such as; the Vietnam war 1955-75, The John F Kennedy assignation 1963 and Robert Kennedy assignation 1968, The Martin Luther king assignation 1968, Woodstock music festival 1969, The black civil rights movements 1954-68, as well as the Neil Armstrong landing on the moon 1969.




The piece is made up of a variety of different screen prints of images which were released in magazines around this time. (1960's-70's) However when released by the press the images would not have the same meaning as this piece does. All the people featuring in this piece have a strong link to the government and politics. The image as a whole is related a lot to death as nearly every person included were killed or died.
The largest part of the piece is the astronaut, highlighting the moon landing in 1969. Unlike the other images included the astronaut is large and made up of pale/light colours whereas the others are smaller and more darker colours. In my opinion they artist is trying to show the amount of positive aspects going on compared to the negative, and maybe showing that the moon landing was not done for scientific discovery but instead to move the publics focus from the negative parts to show how great America is.


The image of Janice Joplin in the top right stands out the most as it is in the primary colour red. When looking at the image you would be instantly drawn to such a bright colour first before taking in the rest of the image. The colour red fits as it is placed next to the images of the Vietnam soldiers highlighting the bloodshed caused by that particular event.


The majority of the people included were all killed or died while promoting many different forms of peace in different ways. The image of Janie Joplin shows Woodstock, a free music festival where popular artists at the time went to promote peace and anti war. And the picture of the deceased Martin Luther King shows his assignation while fighting for equal rights. There is a pattern and contrast between life and death shown in the piece as from the top left down to the bottom right there is a line of deceased people showing the bad aspects whereas in the bottom left corner and the top right it highlights the positive parts by making them larger.


The collage is made up of just photos using no other media, this betters the piece as its clear and gets the meaning across whereas if it involved a variety of medias it would get too busy and the meaning behind the image would get lost. The use of bright bold colours helps it stand out become more interesting to look at.