87. Robert Rauschenberg, Monogram
A dead goat saved from death
This entry is in honor of the 25th anniversary of Glasstire, the online magazine of Texas visual art I founded in 2001. The site’s name is an homage to the Texan-born artist Robert Rauschenberg.
In person, Robert Rauschenberg had an easy warmth and humor. Speaking of his use of taxidermy animals in his seminal combines of the 1950s and 60s, he said, “I always thought ‘it’s too bad they’re dead,’ and so I thought, ‘I can do something about that.’”
Who knows how the spectacular angora goat ended up in a secondhand furniture store on Seventh Avenue, but when he saw it, Rauschenberg knew he had to have it. He paid $15, took it home and got to work. It took him four years to find the solution. Initially he mounted the goat up against the painting, but he said the goat refused to be abstracted into art: “It looked like art with a goat.”
It wasn’t until he hit upon the idea of encircling the goat with a tire and placing the painting on the floor as a kind of platform that the object resolved. The remarkable creature could be seen in the round, as it demanded. But the addition of the tire around its body elevated the piece beyond mere found object. Rauschenberg publicly insisted the work had no meaning, saying “a stuffed goat is special in the way a stuffed goat is special.” But critics have read the tire as a halo, a wedding ring, and a sex act, among many other interpretations. Despite all the theories, despite its outsized influence on American art, viewers still first encounter Monogram as an irreducible, animate presence, a dead goat saved from death.
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This post is part of The American 250, a series featuring 250 words on 250 objects made by Americans, located in America, in honor of the country’s 250th anniversary. Through December 31, 2026.
I’m looking for ideas for this series — have something you’d like me to consider for inclusion? Please feel free to leave a comment!
LOVE THIS!!!
Thanks for this series, Rainey. I admire your dedication to long-term projects.