Parkinsons expansive study opens up poetic, allusive, and sometimes political layers in Rauschenberg s works, unearthing important responses from Parisian critics and writers. This approach unexpectedly establishes Rauschenbergs Surrealist inflected roots, whilst contributing to the recent wave of expanded consideration of post-war, later Surrealism. * Lewis Kachur, author of Displaying the Marvellous: Marcel Duchamp, Salvador Dali, and Surrealist Exhibition Installations (2001), and Professor of Art History, Kean University, USA * With remarkable precision, thoroughness, and generative energy, Parkinsons book offers an authoritative account of the French surrealist reception of Rauschenbergs work in the 1960s. Analysing little-known and untranslated texts, Parkinson shows just how enmeshed the aesthetic and political registers were for these writers and artists. * Edward Krcma, Associate Professor of Art History, Department of Art History and World Art Studies, University of East Anglia, UK * This impressive book is more than a study on Rauschenberg and Surrealism, more specifically on the largely unnoticed or forgotten link between them. It is also a reflection on the way we write art history today, as a strange mix of theory, thoroughly documented archival research and, above all, an obsession with linear periodization. -- Jan Baetens * Leonardo Reviews *
