Box Vox

packaging as content

April 27, 2011

Rauschenberg’s Nabisco Shredded Wheat (Cardboard)

NabiscoShreddedWheat Robert Rauschenberg, Nabisco Shredded Wheat (Cardboard), 1971. Cardboard, 70 x 95 x 11 inches.

And since we’ve been focusing so much on Shredded Wheat for the past week or so—(Shredded Week?)—here’s another thing: Robert Rauschenberg’s cardboard wall sculpture, above.

Rauschenberg made quite a few artworks from shipping cartons. This one was made from Nabisco Shredded Wheat shipping cartons. Like Warhol, he’s also used Kellogg’s Cornflakes shipping cartons.

KelloggsCornflakesCardBird1 Robert Rauschenberg, Cardbird I, 1971, Offset lithograph, screenprint, tape, and polyethylene collage on corrugated cardboard, 45 x 30 in. / 115.3 x 76.2 cm., Edition of 75

Cardboard 1, however, is not an actual cardboard box at all, but a trompe’l'oeil reproduction of one…

The Cardbird series is a tongue-in-cheek visual joke. It is in fact a printed mimic of cardboard constructions. The labour intensive process remains invisible to the viewer – the artist created a prototype cardboard construction which was then photographed and the image transferred to a lithographic press and printed before a final lamination onto cardboard backing.

from the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra 2010

A similar concept was later used by Peter Blake in his 2005 “Fag Packets” print series.

(Another of Rauschenberg’s trompe’l'oeil cardboard concepts, after the fold…)


RauschenbergTampaClay Robert Rauschenberg, Tampa Clay Piece #4, 1972, electric fired stoneware

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

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