At the invitation of the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, Robert Rauschenberg: Real Time is part of the centennial celebration of the artist. Hosted in South Florida, Rauschenberg’s home state from 1970 to his death in 2008, the exhibition is funded by the artist’s Foundation as part of this global Museum initiative.

Known as the enfant terrible who radically eroded the boundaries between art and life, Robert Rauschenberg experimented with new technologies, collaborated with contemporary dancers and composers, and breathed new life into printmaking. The exhibition features 27 experimental works from the NSU Art Museum’s collection, Charles Atlas’s films of Rauschenberg’s collaborations with choreographer Merce Cunningham, and rare early photographs by Rauschenberg on loan from the Fredrick R. Weisman Art Foundation.

Riddle of the Sphinx Part II features recent acquisitions to the NSU Art Museum permanent collection including George Segal, Blue Girl on a Black Bench, gift of the Margulies Collection.

As part of the opening celebration, choreographer Damaris Ferrer will activate her work The Crossings, a collaborative action that sets into motion the simple act of connecting to self and others.

The Crossings: A Global Movement Act is a work that captures a communal experience created by choreographer Damaris Ferrer in 2020. The work removes the imposition of choreography, place, or set time, giving the project a unique autonomous element with multiple beginnings and endings. The experience immerses participants and viewers in a singular experience that will never be repeated in the same way, as each “Crossing” responds in real-time to each environment and those present. Since 2020, The Crossings has traveled to 20 different locations from South Florida to as far as Hong Kong with dozens of participants, from varied cultures, asking the driving question “What is a crossing to you?”

To see more on this project, visit @thecrossings2021 or 

https://www.dfmovementworks.com/the-crossings

Damaris Ferrer is a multi-disciplinary artist, mover, teacher, and choreographer whose movement language was formed through the technical foundations of classical ballet, Graham technique, classical Spanish Dance, Limon technique, Flamenco, and world folk dances. By age 15, she was a member of the Ballet Hispanico of New York second company, followed by a performing and touring career nationally and internationally with various companies.

After relocating to South Florida in 1994, she began teaching at the University Center for the Performing Arts, where she developed a Flamenco dance department and founded Bailes Ferrer, a non-profit arts organization that focused on Flamenco classes, workshops, and performances. By 2004, she joined forces with contemporary flamenco dancer Niurca Marquez and created the Flamenco in the Sun festival, which facilitated collaborative exchanges between artists in South Florida and Spain during ten days of events in Broward and Dade Counties. In 2013, Ferrer began her graduate studies in choreography, receiving her MFA in 2016, at which time her physical investigations met with language and reinvigorated her visual art practice, using it as a repository for movement ideas.  In 2016, Ms. Ferrer became an adjunct faculty member at Florida Atlantic University, and in 2017, became an adjunct faculty member for the department of Visual & Performing Arts at Broward College. By 2019, she began teaching for the dance program at Nova Southeastern University, and she has just been awarded an Artist Support grant from Broward County for her new work, which will premiere in September 2026.

Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008) held a strong conviction that engagement with art can nurture people’s sensibilities as individuals, community members, and citizens was key to his ethos. The Centennial celebrations seek to allow audiences familiar with him and those encountering the artist for the first time to form fresh perspectives about his art work.

A year of global activities and exhibitions in honor of Rauschenberg’s Centennial reexamines the artist through a contemporary lens, highlighting his enduring influence on generations of artists and advocates for social progress. The Centennial’s activation of the artist’s legacy promotes cross-disciplinary explorations and creates opportunities for critical dialogue.

Images from top to bottom:

Robert Rauschenberg, Switchboard (Airport Suite), 1974, Relief and intaglio print on fabric with collage elements, 32 in x 36 in (81.2 x 91.4 cm), NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale; gift of Mr. and Mrs. Francis McCahill 77.36. © 2025 Robert Rauschenberg Foundation / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY

George Segal, Blue Girl on Black Bench, 1977, NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale. Gift of the Margulies Collection. © 2025 The George and Helen Segal Foundation/ Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY

Image courtesy of Damaris Ferrer.

Major support for NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale is provided by the David and Francie Horvitz Family Foundation Endowment, the City of Fort Lauderdale, Jerry Taylor and Nancy Bryant Foundation, Wayne and Lucretia Weiner, Broward County Cultural Division, the Cultural Council, and the Broward County Board of County Commissioners, sponsored in part by the State of Florida through the Division of Arts and Culture and the National Endowment for the Arts, Community Foundation of Broward, Lillian S. Wells Foundation, the Wege Foundation, Beaux Arts of Fort Lauderdale, The Hudson Family Foundation, Delia Moog, Charles and Laura Palmer, Dr. Barry and Judy Silverman, and Friends of NSU Art Museum. NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums.