The Year of the Goat starts on 19 February!

The Year of the Goat is the eighth year in the Chinese calendar cycle of 12 animals. It represents a year of peace and harmony, when constructiveness can flourish. Monogram, familiarly called “The Goat”, is one of Moderna Museet’s most famous works. It was made in the late 1950s by the American artist Robert Rauschenberg.

Monogram, 1955–1959

In an era when the dominating painterly trend moved towards purity, Rauschenberg chose to mix painting and sculpture, rags, news clips and discarded objects, to create this enormous collage, or combine painting, as he called it. The lonely, rather sad-looking goat stands in the midst of a modern age of space travel and household garbage, like a hero without heroism, a rebel in spite of it all, stripped of illusions.

About Monogram: Sculpture. Oil, paper, textile, printed paper, reproductions, metal, wood, rubber heel and tennis ball on canvas with oil on stuffed angora goat and rubber tyre on wood platform with four casters. 106.68 x 160.66 x 163.83 cm. Purchased in 1965 with funding from the Friends of Moderna Museet.

Welcome to visit the Goat at Moderna Museet!