Shuffle: A Rauschenberg Artwork Lending Library

The Ancient Incident (Kabal American Zephyr), 1981

Shuffle: A Rauschenberg Artwork Lending Library

Shuffle makes available selections from the Rauschenberg Foundation art collection for exhibition in art institutions throughout the United States. Joining philanthropic initiative with the goal of nurturing the artist’s legacy, Shuffle loans are underwritten by the Foundation. Projects can range from a focused presentation of a single artwork to exhibitions of numerous works. Committed to audience development and new scholarship, the program seeks to connect with university and regional museums. Shuffle encourages dialogue with partnering institutions’ collections.

The program draws its name from Rauschenberg’s Synapsis Shuffle (1999), a painting comprised of fifty-two parts, as in a deck of cards. The work is realized when collaborators choose and assemble at least three and no more than seven panels, generating myriad variations. Every participant who arranges and re-arranges the parts is credited as a composer of the work. Past players include musician David Byrne, artist Chuck Close, choreographer Merce Cunningham, curator Walter Hopps, and gallerist Ileana Sonnabend.

In the spirit of its namesake, the program invites collaboration with partnering institutions to start conversations, continue arguments, and foster new perspectives. The proposition: take Rauschenberg’s works as inspiration, counterpoint, or at their most basic, as objects of contemplation and deep looking. Shuffle is both a tribute to the artist’s life and oeuvre as well as a venture to cultivate his public.

Please visit the newly launched website: shuffle.rauschenbergfoundation.org

Featuring the current exhibition, Rauschenberg: Collecting & Connecting, on view at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University through January 11, 2015: shuffle.rauschenbergfoundation.org/exhibitions/nasher/

Rauschenberg: Collecting & Connecting presents a dialogue between selections from the Nasher Museum's collection and over thirty artworks on loan from the Rauschenberg Foundation.