Robert Rauschenberg: Gluts at Galerie Thaddeus Ropac, Paris Marais (October 20-November 22, 2025)

October 20-November 22, 2025

Thaddaeus Ropac Paris Marais presents the first exhibition in 15 years dedicated to Robert Rauschenberg’s sculptural Glut series (1986–94), and the first exhibition of the series ever held in France.

Beginning with his early Combines (1954–64), Robert Rauschenberg (1925–2008) revolutionized the picture plane through the inclusion of everyday objects, which he termed “gifts from the street,” redefining and expanding the boundaries of what could be considered an artwork. It was in this spirit that he created his Glut series of sculptural assemblages at the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s. They represent one of his earliest forays into a new material – metal – in the form of found objects assembled and riveted together to create wall reliefs and freestanding sculptures. Unlike in the artist’s earlier Combines, however, the found elements in the Gluts are no longer affixed to canvas supports. Instead, they become entirely autonomous, placed directly on the wall or the ground in a wholehearted engagement with the poetics of recycling and reclamation.

The Gluts would be the artist’s final series of sculptures, as well as his most enduring: the usually restless Rauschenberg continued returning to the series over the span of almost a decade. The Gluts are rarely seen together, with the last exhibition dedicated to them held in 2009–10 at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice; the Museum Tinguely, Basel; and the Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao. The series was inspired by the artist’s visit to Texas in 1985 for his exhibition at the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston. At the time, Rauschenberg’s native Texas was in the midst of a recession due to a surplus, or ‘glut’, in the oil market, turning its landscape into a wasteland of abandoned vehicles and the rusting signs of failed petrol stations. Returning to his studio in Captiva Island, Florida, Rauschenberg, marked by what he had seen in Texas, sought out similar objects in the local scrapyard, salvaging discarded signs and automotive and industrial parts to create the first Gluts: a gesture that anticipated the environmental concerns that, decades later, have taken a central position in artistic thought and production.