It also comes with enough twists to throw those terms right out the window. His work helped to invent them. The Modern's up . . . Uptown, the Guggenheim Museum takes on Rauschenberg's career chronologically. A stroll up the ramp shows how he spurred one significant innovation after another.
Tower galleries off to the side concentrate on extended projects.
The museum's SoHo branch shows a different artist. It holds paintings from the last ten years, along with, oh, contraptions. Half a mile west, the Ace Gallery, in conjunction with the museum, exhibits a single work, The Two-Furlong Piece . Uptown shows decades of searching, startling, and self-creation. While Abstract Expressionists were producing their finest work, Rauschenberg made his white paintings, cobbling together panels too dull even to serve as house paint.