Choke

Robert Rauschenberg

1964

As one of the leading postwar American artists, Robert Rauschenberg produced a number of screen prints influenced by the rise of Pop art in the 1960s. Choke combines photographic fragments with painted passages employing the vigorous brushstrokes and gestural markings typical of Abstract Expressionism. By aggressively juxtaposing such divergent styles, Rauschenberg counters the Abstract Expressionist tendency to embrace the notion of a self-sufficient subject inured to the effects of the real world. Much of the imagery, for example, suggests Rauschenberg’s own increasingly critical attitude toward Cold War American culture. The disjointed collage of an army helicopter, a troop of scouts bearing flags, and the Statue of Liberty conjures a chaotic state in which patriotism and the Vietnam War are intertwined, underscored by the “one-way” sign that dominates the upper half of the canvas. Modified to resemble a rocket and transferred to the canvas using fiery red ink, it is tilted upward, trailed by a bright orange plume of painterly drip marks. Confined nonetheless to the space of the canvas, this image ultimately evokes the frustrations of a subject confronted with the inescapable fact of contemporary sociopolitical realities. [Permanent collection label, 2017]

Artist Robert Rauschenberg (American, 1925–2008)
Title Choke
Date 1964
Medium Oil and silkscreen on canvas
Dimensions unframed | 60 x 48 in.
Credit line Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Richard K. Weil, 1972
Object number WU 4499

Parallel Modes: Illustrated Visual Journalism and American Photography, 1955–1980
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, 01/23/2015 - 04/05/2015

Collecting Patterns
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, 09/05/2003 - 12/07/2003

International Abstraction: Art of the 1950s from the Washington University Collections
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, 01/22/1999 - 03/28/1999

Counter Perception: The Shaping of Our Culture
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, 05/09/1997 - 05/16/1997

A Gallery of Modern Art
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, 08/09/1994 - 10/16/1994

Robert Rauschenberg: The Silkscreen Paintings 1962–64
Whitney Museum of American Art, 12/07/1990 - 03/17/1991

Made in the U.S.A. An Americanization in Modern Art, the 50s and 60s
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City, Missouri), 07/25/1987 - 09/06/1987
Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, University of California, Berkeley (Berkeley, California), 04/04/1987 - 06/21/1987
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (Richmond, Virginia), 10/07/1987 - 12/07/1987

Cubists, Surrealists, and Expressionists

Capsule of Modern Art
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, 01/09/1983 - 03/06/1983

The Centennial Exhibition
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, 05/15/1981 - 10/11/1981

1972
Mr. and Mrs. Richard K. Weil, St. Louis

Inscription [verso, UL on canvas, written in red marker:] CHOKE / RAUSCHENBERG / 1964

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