Rauschenberg's cardboards at the Menil

When I got to Volon (Cardboard), a blue cardboard box that once held god-knows-what from the Burlington Glass Fabrics Company, I had solved the exhibition. The mystery -- that is, the exhibition -- was Robert Rauschenberg: Cardboards and Related Pieces at the Menil Collection. The work was almost entirely pieces Rauschenberg had made out of cardboard between 1970-72, a period during which Rauschenberg took a break from nearly 20 years of medium-creating art to survey the exploding global contemporary art scene.

The first mystery I had solved was what Rauschenberg was doing with all of this cardboard: He was re-making the art of his contemporaries by paring it down to a simple, common material. Sometimes he even re-made his own work, but whichever, he did it with nothing but cardboard, maybe a piece of rope, possibly some spray paint. Sometimes Rauschenberg flattened the boxes, sometimes he glued them to something else, and sometimes he built them out off of the wall and into the room, but nothing that Rauschenberg did to any of them required art-making techniques learned after third grade. The Menil show is thus essentially a wildly entertaining whodunnit in which each work asks, 'Whose art is Raushcenberg deconstructing here? Whose is he aping there?'

The show's strength is also its weakness. Visitors who are not well-versed in the history of post-war art are going to be lost. The cardboards were as much a mental workout for Rauschenberg as they are presentable art objects. (Only one of them was included in Rauschenberg's first full retrospective, a number that quintupled by the mid-90s Guggenheim retro.) As a result this show is art for art history geeks. Or as one friend told me after I copped to liking the show: "That's what you get for being over-educated."

So back to Volon. About twenty minutes after I had first looked at it, I finally realized what -- and whom -- it was about. It is the only blue cardboard work in the show. It's Rauschenberg's deconstruction of Yves Klein's work, especially his signature 'International Klein Blue.' But for Rauschenberg one reference wasn't enough. Stamped to the cardboard in several places was the instruction: 'LAY FLAT - DO NOT STAND ON END.' It is, of course, another reference to Klein and to his 'dojo paintings' in which models, slathered in blue, lay down in performance or lay down onto Klein's canvases, leaving a blue imprint. As with most every Hercule Poirot I read, I feel like I should have solved Volon sooner.

More on Rauschenberg at the Menil later this week.