Lost on the Road

Robert Rauschenberg’s collage mixes together twentieth-century ephemera, including maps and magazine advertisements. By juxtaposing pieces of road maps at odd angles, Rauschenberg seamlessly connects the roads around South Bend, Indiana, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania—two cities hundreds of miles apart. This collaging of maps uses the consistency and interchangeability of network lines to subvert the maps’ own geography. Rauschenberg focuses our attention on how the maps communicate instead of the places they depict.