A Trove To a Brillant Artist

The Walker Art Center first brought the Merce Cunningham Dance Company to Minneapolis in 1963 for a performance of the choreographer's Antic Meet (1958). For this Cunningham had Robert Rauschenberg design and make the set pieces and costumes which were hand painted tank tops with a tattoo-style eagle holding an American flag in its beak and white scrunched-up parachutes for dresses that bounced to the slapstick effect as the dancers went through there routine. 

A hand-painted unitard from Summerspace, 1958



Now two years since Cunningham died at the age of 90 and after five decades of supporting his works of art through many hardships he finally received a trove of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company's set pieces, costumes, painted backgrounds and props made in collaborations with artists such as Rauschenberg, John Cage, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, Frank Stella, and Roy Lichtenstein, as well as some younger artists such as Ernesto Neto, Charles Long, Daniel Arsham, and Rei Kawakubo.

Follow me on twitter @AllTypeOfArt