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of Captiva, in the Gulf waters that lie south of Tampa, Fla. There, equipped with two lithographic presses, he presides over a working commune of printers and friends, whose timetable has become adjusted to his: breakfast at noon, swim, work all afternoon and evening, dinner never earlier than midnight. "You can't imagine," he cackles, "how many disturbances I miss out on down here." This landscape offers the clue to his recent work, beginning with the Hoarfrosts and continuing through Jammers, a series of delicate sewn constructions of silk, twine and rattan cane. They are without pretension, and hardly displace air at all. They read as a shimmer of color, sails in the light. Off the beach, past the rattling leaves of the sea grapes, two ambiguous planes meet: the shallow coastal water, slicked with weed, taking the light like satin; and the pale sky, colored the rinsed blue of a Tiepolo ceiling. A pelican lumbers by, just airborne, printing its ragged prehistoric silhouette on the fabric of the scene. Once again, as for the past two decades, Rauschenberg's art drains back into its source, the world.
