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Rauschenberg, Robert (Artist/Photographer) & Ackley, Clifford (Contributor) : Photos In + Out City Limits: Boston ("photos In & Out City Limits: Boston")

ULAE Incorporated, New York City, NY, 1981

First Edition / First Printing. As New in No Dust Jacket, As Issued. 70 pages. Retrospective collection of photographs on subject. The first of a planned series on American cities, the project ended with a companion volume on New York City. The first and only edition. Published in a small and limited print run as a softcover original only. There is NO Hardcover Edition. There is no ISBN. The First Edition is now rare. An austerely elegant production by Robert Rauschenberg: Oversize-volume format. White softcovers with metallic-silver titles beautifully embossed on the cover and spine, as issued. Photographs by Robert Rauschenberg. Essay by Clifford Ackley. Matching white hard board slipcase. Printed on pristine-white, thick uncoated stock paper in the United States to the highest standards. Without DJ, as issued. Presents Robert Rauschenberg's "Photos In + Out City Limits: Boston". The great artist's collection of black-and-white photographs on Boston. It is the partial fulfillment of his 30-year-old wish to photograph the entire United States, a project he never completed. Showcases his unique approach to photography as a process of discovery, selection, and assemblage of objects from everyday life. One of the least well-known facts about Rauschenberg is that he began his career as a photographer. He makes no distinction between his photography and his painting, and he brings the same acute eye to both. The photographs, like the paintings, are formally rigorous, sensuous, and piercing. His celebrated method of appropriating found images and objects to capture the fabric, tempo, and "feel" of modern life is photographically-inspired and characterizes his large body of work. The idea of appropriation is not unique to Rauschenberg. It is a central tenet of Surrealism and continues to be the latter Movement's enduring legacy. What makes Rauschenberg's work unique is the way he has "set in motion an interplay of shapes in which the human form is integrated to a rigorous yet flamboyant sense of design, pictures in which art and real life coincide" (Pontus Hulten). "A protean genius who showed America that all of life could be open to art. Rauschenberg didn't give a fig for consistency or curating his reputation; his taste was always facile, omnivorous, and hit-or-miss, yet he had a big-ness of soul and a richness of temperament that recalled Walt Whitman" (Robert Hughes). "Mine is the need to be where it will always never be the same again. Photography is the most direct communication of non-violent contacts" (Robert Rauschenberg). An absolute "must-have" title for Robert Rauschenberg collectors. This copy is very prominently and beautifully signed in pencil by Robert Rauschenberg. It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page. This title is a great art photography book. This is one of few such signed copies of the First Edition/First Printing still available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright, a pristine beauty. Please note: Rauschenberg basically stopped signing books in the 1990's. Signed copies still available online are vintage, not recent, and few. Copies available online have serious flaws because the color white soils very easily. A rare signed copy thus. 45 tritone plates. One of the greatest artists of the 20th century. A fine collectible copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG TITLES IN OUR CATALOG).

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