Merce Cunningham & Robert Rauschenberg

Rauschenberg began working with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company in 1954, and contributed to over twenty performances overall. This included set design and construction, costume design, and lighting. Cunningham believed that no medium should be subordinate to another, as he believed they were each independent and necessary to completing the performance piece. Minutiae was an interactive art piece that performers used in the act. Not only was it a scenery item but also a piece that the performers could walk behind and through.

For Rauschenberg, this was one of his first famous freestanding "combines" that used both 2D and 3D material: painting and sculpture. This collaboration of visual and performance art began to challenge the settings in which art could be displayed and involved within other art forms.