Short Circuit

Robert Rauschenberg is best known for the “combine,” a hybrid form of painting and sculpture that integrates humble materials, found images, and paint to bridge what he called “the gap between art and life.” Rauschenberg submitted Short Circuit for an annual exhibition at Stable Gallery in 1955. He invited friends to produce small pieces that could be smuggled into the exhibition in his cabinet-shaped construction. A painting by his former wife, artist Susan Weil, appears behind the right door, and a flag composition by Jasper Johns once sat behind the left door. (It went missing in 1965 and was replaced at Rauschenberg’s invitation with a facsimile by the artist Sturtevant.) The work also includes a Judy Garland autograph, an image of Abraham Lincoln, and a postcard of grazing cows, among other items. While Short Circuit captures aspects of a collective American experience, it also ranks among the most personal of Rauschenberg’s combines.