{"id":703,"date":"2016-07-05T18:06:30","date_gmt":"2016-07-05T18:06:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gsfineart.com\/gallery-news\/?p=703"},"modified":"2016-07-05T18:07:09","modified_gmt":"2016-07-05T18:07:09","slug":"wow-work-of-the-week-robert-rauschenberg-chow-bags-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gsfineart.com\/gallery-news\/wow\/wow-work-of-the-week-robert-rauschenberg-chow-bags-series","title":{"rendered":"WOW – Work Of the Week – Robert Rauschenberg “Chow Bags Series”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n\n
\"Chow\u00a0\"Chow<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
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\n

ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG<\/b><\/span>
\nMonkey Chow <\/i>and Rabbit Chow<\/i>, from Chow Bags Series<\/i><\/span>
\n1977<\/span>
\nScreenprint with collage of string<\/span>
\n48 1\/8 x 36 3\/8 in. each
\nEdition of 100<\/span>
\nPencil signed and numbered<\/span><\/p>\n

About These Works:<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Robert Rauschenberg\u2019s Chow Bags <\/i>portfolio (1977) consists of six screen prints with graphite and plastic thread, each featuring a different domesticated animal. The prints are based on paper collages that Rauschenberg created from actual bags of animal feed manufactured by Ralston Purina (now Purina Mills), a company best known for its Dog Chow and Cat Chow brands. He chose the packaging for the less common feeds, based on bags for a livestock feed.
\nThey are:\u00a0<\/span>Mink Chow, Goat Chow, Monkey Chow, Hog Chow, Rabbit Chow, and\u00a0 Calf Startena (based on a bag for a livestock feed supplemented with nutrients for early growth).<\/span><\/p>\n

They all share the distinctive red-and-white checkered pattern (except Monkey Chow, which has the green and white checkered pattern), made famous by Purina\u2019s more familiar products. By incorporating this pattern and other prominent design elements of the bags, Rauschenberg\u2019s Chow Bags <\/i>call attention to the simultaneous familiarity and strangeness of Purina\u2019s graphic identity.<\/span><\/p>\n

Photographs of the finished collages were used as the basis for the screen prints. Although Rauschenberg selectively cut and partially flattened the paper feed bags to create his collages, he retained their rectangular shape and allowed this form to dictate the overall configuration of each print. The bold, graphic renderings of the animals at the center of these works are surrounded by various arrangements of fainter transfer images such as flowers and leaves, cars stuck in traffic, Coca-Cola bottles, and a woman\u2019s glossy, manicured finger. The resulting compositions present the animals gazing out as in traditional portraiture, playfully framed by colorful graphics and strong geometric shapes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

After the silkscreen process, additional collage elements were applied to each print, including small pieces of fabric and plastic stitching that mimics the pull-strings used to open feed bags. The Chow Bags<\/i> series was printed by Styria Studio in New York, and issued in an edition of 100.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rauschenberg was impressed by the history of Purina Mills. Founded by William Danforth in 1884, the company produced Purina Chow, a line of food for animals that prospered for well over a century. The name of the product has an explanation. The word Purina (from pure) was coined to describe the purity of the grain made by the Danforth mills, and Chow is the name that soldiers during World War I used to refer to food.<\/span>
\nPurina Mills supported the United States\u2019 war effort. It assisted farmers through various programs to produce better food for the troops; and during the Great Depression, the company increased the sale of its breakfast products by rewarding \u2014 with toys and trinkets \u2014 any youngster who returned box tops to the company. This exemplified the power of advertising in even a poor economy. The success and entrepreneurial spirit of the Purina Mills company stands as an example of capitalistic America at it best.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Chow Bags<\/i> series embraces the very essence of what Robert Rauschenberg has been trying to capture and convey in his art, and in the Pop Art movement in general. \u00a0<\/span>
\nPop Art’s introduction of identifiable imagery (drawn from mass media and popular culture) was a major shift from the direction of Modernism and Abstract Expressionism. \u00a0 Pop artists celebrated commonplace objects and people of everyday life. By creating paintings or sculptures of mass culture objects and media stars, and incorporating\u00a0 commercial images, the Pop Art movement aimed to blur the boundaries between “high” art and “low” culture, in this way seeking to elevate popular culture to the level of fine art.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Rauschenberg\u2019s Chow Bags<\/i> series seemingly embraced the post World War II manufacturing and media boom. His choice of Purina Chow as imagery is an enthusiastic endorsement of the capitalist market and the goods it circulated, while at the same time denotes an element of cultural critique, playing on the concept of consumerism that was at an all time high after the war, and also\u00a0elevating the everyday to high art: tying the commodity status of the goods represented to the status of the art objects themselves. Which is exactly what the Pop Art movement is about.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG Monkey Chow and Rabbit Chow, from Chow Bags Series 1977 Screenprint with collage of string 48 1\/8 x 36 3\/8 in. each Edition of 100 Pencil signed and numbered About These Works: Robert Rauschenberg\u2019s Chow Bags portfolio … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":704,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[16,79,369,248,8,83,9,15,102,370,23,46,47,372,371,93,92,69,17],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsfineart.com\/gallery-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsfineart.com\/gallery-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsfineart.com\/gallery-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsfineart.com\/gallery-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsfineart.com\/gallery-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=703"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/gsfineart.com\/gallery-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":708,"href":"https:\/\/gsfineart.com\/gallery-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703\/revisions\/708"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsfineart.com\/gallery-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsfineart.com\/gallery-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsfineart.com\/gallery-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsfineart.com\/gallery-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}