American artist Robert Rauschenberg died Monday according to an AP report and  New York’s Pace Wildenstein gallery.

Although known for his assemblage and mixed media works which brought together elements as disparate as bald eagles, mattresses and brooms, the Texas native was equally at home in the theater and dance worlds. He designed costumes and sets for Merce Cunningham and Paul Taylor.

 I always found Rauschenberg’s funky “combines” - assemblage works he began producing in 1953 at the dawn of the Beat era -especially fascinating. His gift for marrying flotsam and jetsam with scribbles and patches of dripping paint has been hugely influential. He was also an excellent printmaker and his collaged, edgy prints are as vibrant and relevant today as they were in the 1960’s.

 I’m thinking of Rauschenberg’s Automobile tire print, his series of “White Paintings,” the erased De Kooning drawing. If you’ve never seen these works, check them out here, here and here.

After several flaps regarding cruelty to animals in the art world, particularly one exhibit that was closed at the San Francisco Art Institute, a local organization is working to prohibit “cruel” art in San Francisco.

In Defense of Animals is a San Rafael-based animal-rights organization that works hard to stop animal abuse all over, but particularly in the Bay Area. I happen to be on their e-mail list and they are always trying to stop cruelty at local circuses, Marine World and local zoos.

Anyway, IDA President Eliot M. Kats will testify tonight at 5:30 p.m. at San Francisco City Hall in support of a proposed ordinance to ban the abuse or killing of animals to produce art. It is called the “Humanitarian Art Ordinance” and it was introduced by Commissioner Christine Garcia as a direct response to the San Francisco Art Institute exibit that included a video of animals being slaughtered with a sledgehammer.  

The ordinance reads like this:

“The City of San Francisco believes that there is something inherently wrong with the production of media and/or art wherein the director or the producer of the media and/or art is the direct cause of the death, abuse or suffering of an animal that is to be captured on media and/or art display. This ordinance will make the commission of the crime of Animal Abuse for the purposes of creating media and/or art to now be illegal, punishable as a misdemeanor or felony. The location of production of the media and the commission of animal abuse is irrelevant. Any person responsible for displaying this media as “art” is also guilty of a misdemeanor or felony.”

After a few weeks of silence on this here blog, I am happy to say I am back in action and ready to post all kinds of art stuff for your reading delight. I will first give you a heads up about a cool event TONIGHT at Industrielle Gallery in Oakland.
The gallery is hosting “Kind Women for Womankind: An Art Auction to Benefit Women of Violence” from 7 to 9 p.m. at their space at 33 Grand Avenue in Oakland. The auction includes artwork donated from Bay Area women artists including, Elisa Carozza, Ann Marie Donahue, Lynn Ganser, Maya Kabat, Jessica Serran, Dana Taylor, Charlene Thomas and Mary Younkin, amongst others. Money from art sales goes to CARE.org, a humanitarian organization fighting global poverty and injustice.

If you can’t make it to the show tonight, don’t worry. You can visit the center’s Web site and bid on the pieces RIGHT NOW. Come on. You know you want to.