Ideas of Our Time: Bob Rauschenberg in Florida & The Moon Museum

In conjunction with our "HONORING ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG" exhibition (June 21 - October 19, 2025) and in celebration of his birth centenary, please join Jade Dellinger, Director of the Bob Rauschenberg Gallery at Florida Southwestern State College, for this illustrated and insightful lecture on "Bob Rauschenberg in Florida & The Moon Museum: Apollo XII's Secret Art Mission." Exploring a little-known chapter in the history of the U.S.-Soviet Space Race and an art project unknown even to the NASA astronauts, the "Moon Museum" was the first-ever "Space Art" object and secretly sited the drawings of Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, Forrest Myers, David Novros and John Chamberlain on the lunar surface in 1969. Bob Rauschenberg attended the Apollo XI launch and purchased his first property on Captiva Island in the late 1960's - living and working in the Sunshine State until his death in 2008. He would have turned 100 on October 22nd, 2025. At the invitation of the U.S. Department of State, Dellinger has shared his findings about this project at museums, galleries and universities in Tbilisi, Georgia; Caracas, Venezuela; Kyiv, Ukraine; Ljubljana, Slovenia and many more.

About the Presenter

JADE DELLINGER has served for more than a decade as Director of Exhibitions & Collections at Florida Southwestern State College in Fort Myers, but is known best locally for his exhibition program and related events at FSW’s Bob Rauschenberg Gallery. As a Distinguished Alumnus of the University of South Florida and with an M.A. in Arts Administration from New York University, Jade has collaborated on curatorial projects with major museums in the U.S., Europe, Mexico and South America for almost twenty years prior to his arrival in Southwest Florida. Beginning his curatorial career by inviting artist-friend Doug Aitken to present his first site-specific video installation "I’d Die for You" (1994) at the Pasco Art Center in Holiday, Florida, he curated Maurizio Cattelan’s US museum debut "Choose Your Destination: How to Get a Museum-Paid Vacation" a year later and organized sculptor Keith Edmier’s "EK/KE" project (a collaborative exhibition with legendary motorcycle daredevil Evel Knievel) at the USF Contemporary Art Museum in 1997. He worked closely with Edmier and new collaborator – 70’s pop icon - Farrah Fawcett on a show for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in the mid-aughts. Dellinger has organized major one- and two-person museum shows for such artists as Yoko Ono, Ann Hamilton, Peter Greenaway, Wayne White, Allan McCollum, Guerilla Girls, Keith Haring, Laurie Anderson, William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, as well as, numerous traveling solo Rauschenberg exhibitions at the Bob Rauschenberg Gallery, Black Mountain College Museum + Art Center/Asheville, University of Kentucky Art Museum/Lexington and elsewhere. He has written for international publications including Sculpture, Flash Art, Art Papers and Guitar Afficionado; and co-authored the books, "Are We Not Men? We are DEVO!" (SAF Publishing Ltd., UK 2003/2008) and "The Beginning Was the End: DEVO in Ohio" (University of Akron Press, OH 2024), which trace the history of the seminal 1980s New Wave band. Jade has been featured in The New York Times and has appeared with the late Apollo XII astronaut Alan Bean on the popular PBS "History Detectives" television program. Since his arrival at FSW, Jade has presented his research on “Bob Rauschenberg & The Moon Museum: Apollo XII’s Secret Art Mission” at the invitation of the U.S. Department of State at museums, galleries and universities in Tbilisi, Georgia; Caracas, Venezuela; Kyiv, Ukraine; Ljubljana, Slovenia and elsewhere. In 2022-23, Jade guest curated "Don't Blame it on Zen: The Way of John Cage & Friends" for MoCA/Jacksonville.

About MOCA

The Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville (MOCA) is the only museum in Northeast Florida dedicated to contemporary art. MOCA is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and a Cultural Institute of the University of North Florida. The museum serves the community and its visitors through exhibitions, collections, educational programs, and publications designed to enhance an understanding and appreciation of contemporary art with particular emphasis on works created from 1960 to the present.

Located in the heart of historic Downtown Jacksonville, MOCA is one of the city’s most significant cultural assets. Among the most prominent contemporary art museums in the Southeast, MOCA’s exhibitions and programs set the pace for arts and art-integrated programming on a regional and national stage. Renowned in this community, MOCA casts the spotlight on Jacksonville as a burgeoning, vital arts destination.

The museum is also a cornerstone of Jacksonville’s multibillion-dollar downtown revitalization plan with exhibitions and programs that bring new visitors to the civic core during the day, at night, and on weekends.

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