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Episode details

Radio 3,26 Mar 2014,15 mins

SeriesFinish the Bottle

Robert Rauschenberg

The Essay

Available for over a year

A turtle in the elevator, a television on the cooker - there was plenty to disconcert the critic Martin Gayford when he paid a visit to the artist Robert Rauschenberg in his New York loft. Rauschenberg was a 20th century master - an artist whose paintings, 'combines' and graphic work anticipated pop art and many other genres, years before they became universally fashionable. Gayford discovers a man wedded to the idea of surprise and to trying to reflect the the deluge of imagery which characterises our world.

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