Artist’s goat and bed give Tate Modern a display to rival Emin

TATE Modern is getting its own bed to rival Tracey Emin’s work that caused a scandal when first shown across the river at Tate Britain 17 years ago.

Robert Rauschenberg’s Bed 1955 is one of more than 200 works by the US artist to go on show as part of retrospective of his work opening in December.

The work, thought to be made up of his own pillow and a quilt from a fellow artist, was made by stretching t h e mat e r i a l s l i ke a canvas before painting on them. It will hang on the wall of the recently revamped gallery.

Emin’s bed, unmade and with condoms and dirt y underwear strewn across its sheets, was first displayed in 1999 when it was shortlisted for the Turner Prize and became a sensation, attracting huge crowds. It was lent back to the gallery by a collector last year.

T h e Rau s c h e n b e r g sh ow, whi c h includes photography, sculptures and video, also features one of his best known works — a stuffed goat with a painted face wedged inside a tyre.

The work, called Monogram 1955-59, is coming to the UK for the first time in more than 50 years and had to be X-rayed to ensure it was fit to travel from the gallery in Sweden that owns it. It is one of the best-known examples of what he called Combines, a hybrid between painting and sculpture assembled from everyday objects.

Co-curator Catherine Wood said the show would illustrate the huge influence Rauschenberg has had on artists working today and shed light on his work, which she described as “analogue precedents for digital media”. “For example, it will show his interest in the juxtaposition of images, which we are used to now in Photoshop, but which was revolutionary then. “He said he would walk around the block to find the materials he would use and he found this goat in a taxidermist’s shop. In New York, there was a growing c ar culture so abandoned tyres were easily found”. Director of exhibitions Achim BorchardtHume said Rauschenberg “saw the experience of art as inseparable from the experience of life”. “Rauschenberg exploded the myth of the artist working isolated in the studio and revelled in making connections between the stuff of the world and the materials and strategies traditionally associated with high art. “He blazed a new trail for art in the second half of the 20th century and became a beacon for other artists for generations to come.”