‘All the junkyards in Naples are much richer’: materiality and appropriation in Robert Rauschenberg’s Neapolitan Gluts

After a visit to his native Texas in 1985 during a period of economic recession caused by an oil glut, Robert Rauschenberg began transforming abandoned petrol station signs and scrap metal into sculptural assemblages. Titled Gluts, this series engaged with the oil industry’s paradoxes and global capitalism’s impact on the US South. Between 1986 and 1987 Rauschenberg extended the project to Naples, creating the Neapolitan Gluts from locally sourced waste. These works interrogated the city’s urban decay and social fabric, diverging from their US counterparts through their engagement with domestic objects and everyday life. Initially deployed as the stage design for the Trisha Brown Dance Company’s show Lateral Pass at Teatro San Carlo, the Neapolitan Gluts were later reconfigured for an exhibition at Galleria Lucio Amelio. This article examines Rauschenberg’s practice of appropriation, focusing on the materiality of metal waste in contemporary sculpture. It explores how sculptural reuse negotiates memory, social rituals and urban space across transnational contexts, reflecting geopolitical differences and cultural specificities.