Love letters

The opening exhibition of the new QCC Gallery is a highly important display of some 50 works by Robert Rauschenberg, most of which have never before been publicly exhibited. This is a very personal collection, for every work in it was a gift from Robert Rauschenberg to Terry van Brunt, once the artist’s chief assistant and a companion. Assembled as a private collection by the man who was perhaps the central focus of Rauschenberg’s life for much of the 70s and 80s, it exposes a side of Rauschenberg ignored by mainstream museums. Alternately whimsical and moving, this collection reveals a clear thematic coherence behind what is generally understood as Rauschenberg’s random juxtaposition of collage elements.