M+ museum in Hong Kong will mark the centennial of Robert Rauschenberg’s birth this year by launching the first exhibition to explore the late American artist’s Asian projects, which date from the mid-1960s to the early 1990s.
The show, Robert Rauschenberg and Asia (22 November-April 2026), will focus on the Rauschenberg Overseas Culture Interchange—known as ROCI—whereby the artist dispatched and displayed his own paintings, sculptures and editioned objects in ten countries, including China, Tibet and Japan, between 1984 and 1991.
An M+ spokesperson says: “There was an exhibition at the UCCA Center for Contemporary Art [in Beijing] in 2016 on ROCI China, and there have been other ROCI exhibitions, but none looking at the extent of his work in Asia, which was considerable. We will certainly be bringing new perspectives and research to this exhibition.”
The show and its catalogue will consider Rauschenberg’s East Asian projects within the contexts of time and place, reflecting on their reception and legacy, the spokesperson adds. “We will also highlight his cross-cultural dialogues through the inclusion of works by Asian artists and interviews with artists, curators and colleagues who encountered his work in different locations.”
Robert Rauschenberg’s China Rose (Galvanic Suite) (1991) is on show at Art Basel Hong Kong
Courtesy Robert Rauschenberg Foundation/ARS New York 2025
Rauschenberg meticulously researched and organised each leg of the ROCI project, which he largely funded. He undertook a research trip to each participating country ahead of the show to meet local and regional artists and cultural figures. Then, he made new works at his Florida studio based on his experiences, which were shown during each leg alongside a selection of ROCI pieces from the countries he had previously visited.
Also, Thaddaeus Ropac gallery is due to bring China Rose (Galvanic Suite) (1991) to Art Basel Hong Kong, priced at $825,000, “Rauschenberg silkscreened black-and-white imagery from photographs—here, a still-life table scene depicting a vase of roses—onto metal panels before overlaying translucent swathes of acrylic paint,” according to a gallery statement. The gallery plans to show a Rauschenberg work at every art fair it attends during the artist’s centennial year.
- Robert Rauschenberg and Asia, M+, Hong Kong, 22 November-April 2026
