The Complex Provenance and Dual Interpretations of Rauschenberg's Rebus

Robert Rauschenberg's 1955 Combine painting 'Rebus' is analyzed in depth by art historian Élisabeth Lebovici. The work, owned by François Pinault after passing through the collections of Victor Ganz, Hans Thulin, and Charles Saatchi, was acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 2005 via donors Ronald and Carole Lauder for an estimated €30 million. Rebus, composed of three joined canvases with a central horizontal band of over 100 color sticks, juxtaposes found images and objects above and below this line. Above are fragments including a political poster, a photo of two runners (one black, one white), a comic strip, a postcard of Botticelli's 'Birth of Venus', and a red-stained handkerchief. Below are more graphic, less colorful elements: drawings, stains, and fabric. Lebovici contrasts two critical interpretations: one following Leo Steinberg and Rosalind Krauss, viewing the imagery as material that de-hierarchizes the surface, and another, more iconographic reading (by Jonathan Katz) that sees coded references to Rauschenberg's relationship with Jasper Johns. The article references John Cage's comment that in Rauschenberg's work 'there are no more subjects than there are on a newspaper page.' The painting was included in the exhibition 'Robert Rauschenberg: Combines' at the Centre Pompidou in Paris (October 9, 2006 – January 15, 2007), having previously traveled to MoMA and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and later to the Moderna Museet in Stockholm.