“I really feel sorry for people who think things like soap dishes or mirrors or Coke bottles are ugly,” said Robert Rauschenberg (1925–2008), who had an eye for everyday objects and repurposed them in stunning assemblages. “A newspaper that you’re not reading can be used for anything.” The painter and sculptor is widely known for his Combines—artworks that contain the mundane items he loved (road signs, hangers, umbrellas) and draw the viewer into a maze of associations. Combines are on view at the Gladstone Gallery’s tribute to Rauschenberg, where one man’s trash is literally another man’s treasure. —Carolina de Armas