This month marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of the influential American artist Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008). To mark the occasion, more than half a dozen shows have been organised around the world, led by the New York-based Robert Rauschenberg Foundation.
In 1952, John Cage shocked audiences by staging four minutes and 33 seconds of silence. His composition 4'33" was an attempt to make nothing audible. It was inspired in part by Robert Rauschenberg's White Paintings (1951), entirely white canvasses that work as blank screens to register shifting shadows and reflections, and project them as art. 'A canvas is never empty,' says Cage, quoting Rauschenberg, and 4'33" bears that out, as random ambient sound - coughing, shifting, programmes rustling - becomes a kind of music.
Rauschenberg's radial use of media imagery and commercial printing techniques led critics to associate him with Pop artists such as Andy Warhol. Like Warhol, Rauschenberg was also enamored with contemporary culture.