Rauschenberg was keenly interested in the iconography of American popular culture. He eschewed the emotional style of the Abstract Expressionists without losing the latter’s expressiveness by developing a style that stressed collage and used atypical materials like house paint, as well as techniques such painting with a tire dipped in ink. He expanded his collages by incorporating three-dimensional objects, which he referred to as “combines.” This groundbreaking technique contributed to the course of modern art and creative expression. The works are sometimes called Neo-Dada. Rauschenberg’s fascination with popular imagery and his anything goes aesthetic indisputably influenced Pop Art, which would mimic the look of popular culture as opposed to Rauschenberg’s more subjective renderings.
Rauschenberg used images of current events gathered from magazines and newspapers for his 1964 collage Retroactive 1 (1964). A large press photograph of John F. Kennedy speaking at a televised news conference was the source for this screen print on canvas. He juxtaposed the image of Kennedy with another photo silkscreen of a parachuting astronaut. The overlapping, and seemingly disparate composition, creates a colorful visual commentary on a media-saturated culture struggling to come to grips with the television era.