My thesis examines the policy of the Vancouver Art Gallery (VAG) as it affected the representation of art in its community in the 1960s and '70s. It was begun in order to understand what determined the changes in policy as they were experienced during this period, which saw an enormous expansion in the activities of the Gallery. To some extent the expansion was realized by means of increased cultural expenditure by the federal government, but this only made programmes possible, it did not carry them out. During the 1960s the Vancouver Art Gallery gained a measure of international recognition for its innovative programming, which depended to a degree on the redefinition of its relationship to the local, whether that signified its traditional patronage, Vancouver artists or the "man in the street". VAG's new outreach programme was not unique, but it was contemporary with developments in other locations. Given the popular and critical success of his policy, VAG director Tony Emery pushed it to the relative exclusion of the more traditional type of gallery programme, in this manner angering VAG's "more conservative" audience. With the first indications of a fiscal crisis in the 1970s, the government began reining in public expenditure, including that on the arts. There was first a freeze on funding to the larger arts institutions, which by now included the Gallery, and then the slow withering of government support. VAG's experiments in programming, which had been made possible through this support, became expendable, and there was soon a re-orientation towards more traditional programmes, accompanied by another redefinition of the Gallery's audience. The Gallery's structure, policy and programme were gradually transformed to fit an increasingly corporate model or paradigm in order to secure the extra funds it needed to remain solvent. A crucial aspect of this change was the plan to move the Gallery into larger quarters, which would be more attractive to donors and collectors, and which would allow prestigious exhibitions to be brought into the city. The thesis undertakes to examine the vagaries of Gallery policy with the aid of the current literature on museums and government cultural policy, and with government and Gallery documents. The other major section examines the formation of the reputation of Robert Rauschenberg, as it bears on the reception of a group of his works exhibited at VAG in 1978. Rauschenberg was an artist in frequent contact with Vancouver through exhibitions of his work at a private gallery, and the consolidation of his reputation following the 1976 retrospective of his work by the Smithsonian made his work apt for the promotion of VAG. Rauschenberg's use-value for VAG depends on a particular reading of his work which had become generalized after 1963, and reinforced in 1976, which was appropriate to the new Gallery role promoted by VAG's paladins. This interpretation, which was developed by Alan Solomon in 1963, fixed Rauschenberg's works as celebrations of a way of looking at one's environment and of what was looked at. Solomon's reading became the accepted one, but by an examination of the reception of Rauschenberg's art prior to 1963, and by an analysis of two of his works, I argue that it is neither the only possibility nor even the most accurate one. In the 1970s, critics conflated Rauschenberg's earlier and later work within the context of Solomon's interpretation, which has hardly been expanded upon. They have usually tried to establish an identity of the earlier and later work, based upon Solomon's reading, where I am trying to establish their difference. An analysis of two of the works which appeared in the 1978 Works from Captiva exhibition at VAG indicates the differences with the earlier work and the susceptibility of their iconography to the new role the Gallery was attempting to promote. / Arts, Faculty of / Art History, Visual Art and Theory, Department of / Graduate

The XXXII Venice Biennale, held in 1964, presented an important moment in the history of American art, for it was the first time that an American painter was awarded the major prize at the prestigious international show. The fact that Robert Rauschenberg captured the most coveted award of the Biennale, the Grand Prize for painting, had major repercussions for the art scene in the United States and the international art community. For the Americans, the prize was "proof" that American art had finally come into its own, that through its struggle for recognition over the European avant-garde, it had finally reached its well-deserved place as leader of the pack. For the Europeans, especially the French, the award represented the "last frontier" of American expansionism--for it seemed that the economic and military dominance of the United States finally had been supplemented by cultural dominance. It seems pertinent to this study to examine the French response in particular, since they had traditionally dominated Biennale prizes. By analyzing the French reviews and responses to the prize, and situating these in a broader political context, I will discuss how the U.S. was perceived as the new cultural leader, despite the vehement objections to the culture of the New Frontier, which seemed to be only Coke bottles, stuffed eagles and carelessly dripped paint. Given the vehement objections engendered by the Rauschenberg victory, it seems somewhat curious that the United States would choose Rauschenberg as a representative of American culture. In order to discover how the pop imagery in the work was linked to the image : of U.S. culture promoted by the U.S. Information Agency (the government agency responsible for the show), it is necessary to analyze the cultural and intellectual debates of the early 1960s. Rejecting earlier notions that high art should remain separate from mass culture, a prominent group of intellectuals argued for a "new sensibility" in art which would embrace popular culture, thereby elevating it. This positive notion of a single, all-embracing culture corresponds to a more general optimism among many intellectuals; their rallying cry was the "end of ideology," which disdained radical critique in favor of the promise of Kennedy's "progressivism" and the welfare state. These intellectuals argued that while the system was not perfect, any major problems could be averted by simply "fine-tuning" the existing state; in the meantime, the promise of Kennedy's New Frontier required a more affirmative than critical stance. The elements shared between these discourses on culture and society at this time were of seminal importance to the critical understanding of Rauschenberg's work, particularly as it was presented at the Biennale. / Arts, Faculty of / Art History, Visual Art and Theory, Department of / Graduate

Au cours des années cinquante et au début des années soixante, plusieurs critiques d’art proclamaient que la période des combine-paintings de Robert Rauschenberg était une renaissance du mouvement révolutionnaire dada. En effet, dans plusieurs articles de l’époque, on note une utilisation fréquente du terme "néo-dada" pour faire référence à la production de Rauschenberg. Au milieu des années soixante, cependant, une nouvelle tendance critique émergeait condamnant cette catégorisation. Les tenants de cette nouvelle orientation voyaient Rauschenberg non plus comme un néo-dada mais comme un précurseur du Pop. Tout en reconnaissant la validité de ces deux positions critiques, je tenterai de démontrer, dans les pages qui suivent, que ni l’une ni l’autre expliquent de façon adéquate la période des combine-paintings et le projet artistique qui l’a initiée. Après avoir examiné les points de vue de quelques représentants de ces deux tendances antagonistes, je démontrerai que la valeur essentielle des combine-paintings ne peut être reliée ni au dada ni au Pop. En effet, à la différence du mouvement dada qui rejetait l’institution de l’art et du mouvement Pop qui s’intégrait, d’une façon cynique, à celle-ci, les combine- paintings de Rauschenberg s’inscrivent dans l’institution de l’art de manière à la subvertir et reformule ainsi le projet de l’avant-garde historique qui consistait à combler la brèche entre le statut autonome de l’art et la vie quotidienne. Signatures : Louise Gauthier: Elliott / During the late 1950s and early 1960s, many critics believed that Robert Rauschenberg’s combine-painting period was a revival of the revolutionary Dada movement. Indeed, in many articles, critics referred to the combines as "neo-dada". In the mid 1960s, however, a new wave of criticism began to surface which strongly criticized this categorization. Rather than considering Rauschenberg as a neo-dadaist, these critics saw him as a precursor to Pop. The purpose of this paper will be to show that while both critical perspectives contain some elements of truth, neither one adequately explains the combine-paintings and the basic artistic project that motivated them. After examining the points of view defended by some representatives of these opposed perspectives, I shall argue that the essential value of Rauschenberg’s combine-paintings does not lie in their relationship to either Dada or Pop. Unlike Dada’s total rejection of the institution of art in bourgeois society and Pop art’s cynical acceptance of it, Rauschenberg’s combine-paintings work within the institution of art in order to subvert it, thus reformulating the historical avant- garde’s unfinished project of breaking down the distinction between art as an autonomous entity and day-to-day life. / Montréal Trigonix inc. 2018

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