Brooklyn-based artist Steve Keene last visited the Bob Rauschenberg Gallery in 2018. Over the span of just two weeks, Keene created a monumental 62 panel, 248-foot-long artwork that was inspired by Rauschenberg’s “1/4 Mile or 2 Furlong Piece.”
To celebrate Bob Rauschenberg’s centennial, Bob Rauschenberg Gallery Director Jade Dellinger challenged Keene to make 100 2-by-2-foot paintings that pay homage to Rauschenberg’s storied life and career. To do this, Keene referenced an archive of “found” photographs and images of Rauschenberg, his iconic artworks and his Captiva Island studio and compound. The result is “Steve KEENE: RAUSCHENBERG 100 – A Centennial Celebration” opening in the Bob Rauschenberg Gallery Annex on Aug. 25.
Yale educated, Keene believes in mass-producing hand-painted artworks. Over the past four decades, he’s made more than 350,000 paintings, prompting Time magazine to call him the “Assembly-Line Picasso.”
Rauschenberg is credited with pioneering the modern and pop art movements. Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein both traced their inspiration for pop art to Rauschenberg's collages of appropriated media images and his experiments in silkscreen printing.
MORE INFORMATION:
Keene also gained notoriety for his exhibition “The Miracle Half Mile" at the Santa Monica Museum of Art in 2000. For that exhibition, Keene completed more than 10,000 pictures over the two-month run of the show.
Keene is famous among indie-rock fans for designing album covers for bands including Pavement and The Apples in Stereo. Keene has also painted instruments, video and concert stage sets, and promotional and tour posters for the likes of Soul Coughing, Merzbow, The Klezmatics and the Dave Matthews Band.
The artist has had major solo exhibitions at Moore College of Art in Philadelphia, Rice University in Houston, the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, Germany, the Linden Centre for Contemporary Art in Melbourne, Australia, and the Czech Centre in London. His paintings are collected by REM’s Michael Stipe, DEVO and Cat Power.
National Public Radio, The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, LA Weekly, Filter and Spin Magazines have also featured Keene and his work.
The Bob Rauschenberg Gallery was founded as The Gallery of Fine Art in 1979 on the Lee County campus of Florida Southwestern State College/FSW (then Edison Community College). On June 4, 2004, the Gallery of Fine Art was renamed the Bob Rauschenberg Gallery to honor and commemorate the gallery’s long-time association and friendship with the artist.
Over more than three decades until his death, the gallery worked closely with Rauschenberg to present world premiere exhibitions including multiple installations of the “¼ Mile or 2 Furlong Piece.” The artist insisted on naming the space the Bob Rauschenberg Gallery (versus the “Robert Rauschenberg Gallery”) as it was consistent with the intimate, informal relationship he maintained with both the local Southwest Florida community and FSW.
The annex is located in Building J-118 at 8099 College Parkway in Fort Myers. The gallery is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Saturday.
For more information, telephone 239-489-9313 or visit www.RauschenbergGallery.com.
Support for WGCU’s arts & culture reporting comes from the Estate of Myra Janco Daniels, the Charles M. and Joan R. Taylor Foundation, and Naomi Bloom in loving memory of her husband, Ron Wallace.