Tag: robert rauschenberg

Art Kites Project, Strings Attached

robert rauschenberg's 20-ft tall by 10-ft wide kite flying in a cloud filled sky over himeji castle in japan, which is in the lower right corner of the 1989 image. the kite is orange and red silk screenprinted with black images of chairs and peeling paint in classic rauschenberg collage style. via the rrf instagram
Robert Rauschenberg, Sky House II, screenprint on silk collage, bamboo, 372 x 248 cm, image via ig/RRF
Sky House I, meanwhile, Rauschenberg kept for himself, according to former assistant Thomas Buehler

Robert Rauschenberg’s genius in making a 20×10-foot Art Kite was in understanding the opportunity while ignoring the assignment. Because the opportunity was to make two Art Kites, and have your Art Kites fly in the “vernissage in the sky” at an Art Kite Festival held amidst the blossoming sakura on the grounds of Himeji Castle. While the assignment was to promote Lufthansa.

a 1989 photo of a big square yellow kite with the lufthansa logo of a screaming chicken or whatever the nazis came up with, which the reformed german staffers who reconstituted the company anew in 1953 adopted straight up, just somehow with no nazi association or past now, it's a miracle, flying in a lightly clouded sky over himeji castle. from art kites, the goethe institute catalogue, where the last page and the last image turns out to be the same as all the other money shots of artist-designed kites flying over himeji-jō you just flipped through, and the caption reads, the world tour of the art kites is sponsored by lufthansa, in english and japanese
And for the first 461 pages, I thought the show was about how flying and art are the same glorious expression of human freedom: “The world tour of the Art Kites is sponsored by Lufhansa” [p.462]

Obviously, it was more than that, but also just that. The Art Kites Project was sponsored by Lufthansa and organized by Dr. Paul Eubel, director of the Goethe Institute Osaka, which commissioned 100 artists from around the white world and Japan to create Japanese-style kites in 1987. The kites would fly once in Japan, on April 1 & 2, 1989, and once in Europe, on April 21 & 22, 1990, go on tour for three five years, to 21 museums in Japan (8), Europe (12), and Canada (1), before being auctioned off.

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