Speculative Taxidermy

182FOLLOWING MATERIALITY

MONOGRAM AS SPECULATIVE TOOL

It was during the late 1950s that the crisis of materiality and surfaces re-
covered in this chapter opened the field of possibility from which
Rauschenberg’s Monogram emerged. Monogram, one of the most enig-
matic works of art of the modern period, in more than one way, can be
considered a precursor of speculative taxidermy (fig. 5.6). In The Postmod-
ern Animal, Steve Baker states that Monogram might be “the first con-
vincing presentation of the postmodern animal.”^67 He returns to Mono-
gram multiple times in the book to contextualize it as a confrontation that

FIGURE 5.6 Robert Rauschenberg, Monogram, 1955–1959. Combine: oil, paper, fabric,
printed paper, printed reproductions, metal, wood, rubber shoe heel, and tennis ball
on canvas with oil and rubber tire on Angora goat on wood platform mounted on four
casters. 42 × 63 1/4 × 64 1/2 in. (106.7 × 160.7 × 163.8 cm). Moderna Museet, Stockholm
Purchase 1965, with contribution from Moderna Museets Vänner/The Friends of
Moderna Museet. © Robert Rauschenberg Foundation.