Loose in Some Real Tropics: Robert Rauschenberg’s “Stoned Moon” Projects, 1969–70, is on view through March 16, 2015, at Stanford University's Cantor Arts Center.

In the early 1960s, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) created an art program designed to make the innovations and adventures of the space program accessible to the public through the probing lens of artistic vision. Iconic American artist Robert Rauschenberg was among those invited to interpret NASA’s activities. Acclaimed as the first postmodern artist and a forerunner of the Pop Art movement, Rauschenberg traveled to Cape Canaveral in July 1969 to document the launch of the historic Apollo 11 mission, the first manned spaceflight to the moon’s surface.

As an official guest of the space agency, Rauschenberg enjoyed unrestricted access at NASA’s expansive facilities, roamed the Florida landscape, and met with various agency personnel. This commission resulted in Stoned Moon, an extraordinary series of prints, collages and drawings that together mark a significant moment in American history, scientific history and art history. Working in close collaboration with the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University presents an exhibition of Rauschenberg’s rarely seen responses to the experience of witnessing the Apollo 11 launch, including the Stoned Moon lithographic prints, collages and drawings, alongside wonderful photographic documentation of the artist as he created and first exhibited the artworks. In addition, the exhibition presents previously unpublished notes from the artist’s working files and selections of the printed materials the artist used to produce the artworks. Seen together, these artworks and archival materials present a fascinating view of Rauschenberg’s entire experience as part of the NASA Art Program and offer insight into his unparalleled mode of art making. As James Merle Thomas, curator of the exhibition notes, “ Blending NASA's official imagery with the hallucinatory feeling that characterized the era, Rauschenberg’s prints, drawings and collages provide for us a riveting counter-narrative to the standard depiction of the Apollo era, and reveal the artist's acute awareness of his own role in portraying the historic event."

Loose in Some Real Tropics: Robert Rauschenberg’s “Stoned Moon” Projects, 1969–70 draws its title from a line in a serialized account of the Apollo launch penned for Life magazine by Norman Mailer, who wrote of his own experience at Cape Canaveral: “He was loose in some real tropics at last with swamp and coconut palms. It was encouraging. Technology and the tropics were not built to hide everything from each other.” The exhibition focuses on a group of 20 collages and drawings that Rauschenberg produced. The artwork, intended for publication as the Stoned Moon Book, was completed but never assembled, reproduced and distributed. As a result, these pieces have rarely been seen, and this is the first time they are collectively assembled for a museum exhibition.

To produce Stoned Moon, Rauschenberg worked closely with the Los Angeles-based Gemini G.E.L. studio in the months after the launch to create a series of more than 30 lithographic prints depicting NASA’s efforts. For these, the artist juxtaposed imagery of the lush Florida landscape and the region’s tourist highlights against the crisp aesthetic of the space race: scenes of astronauts and complex machinery. Produced by Rauschenberg in 1969 and printed by Gemini G.E.L. in 1969 and 1970, many of the prints were made using multiple stones (specially prepared blocks of limestone) or aluminum plates, as many as five for a single image. The series demonstrates the artist's technical abilities in realizing large-format, hand-pulled lithographic prints. Thirteen prints from the series are featured in the exhibition.

 “The Cantor is presenting this exhibition as part of Stanford’s yearlong initiative Imagining the Universe: Cosmology in Art and Science,” said Cantor Director Connie Wolf. “We are thrilled to be able to share this legendary artist’s work in a new context and to spotlight his creative response to the monumental scientific achievement of putting the first man on the moon. And we are especially grateful to the Rauschenberg Foundation for their lending the rarely seen works to present at the Cantor.”