Thursday, May 15, 2008

Radical Rauschenberg

Collection (1954)

I was sorry to read this evening on IndigoAlison that the artist Robert Rauschenberg died last Tuesday. He was 82. I don't really know alot about Rauschenberg, the meaning behind his works or his place in the context of art history but I've always really liked his work. It may be slightly simplistic but I love the beautiful tactility of his work and the way combined different media and objects. I look at his work and I imagine he had fun making art!

This quote from the New York Times obituary is beautiful. He was talking to a friend about how he once spoke to a lady who was skeptical of his work;
“To her, all my decisions seemed absolutely arbitrary — as though I could just as well have selected anything at all — and therefore there was no meaning, and that made it ugly. So I told her that if I were to describe the way she was dressed, it might sound very much like what she’d been saying. For instance, she had feathers on her head. And she had this enamel brooch with a picture of ‘The Blue Boy’ on it pinned to her breast. And around her neck she had on what she would call mink but what could also be described as the skin of a dead animal. Well, at first she was a little offended by this, I think, but then later she came back and said she was beginning to understand.”
I think it describes his work beautifully, like a well selected and put together outfit. (but then again maybe I'm just a little clothes obsessed!)


Pilgrim (1960)


Shellv (from Stoned Moon series 1969)


Snowberry Fudge (1980)


Colonnade (1984)

Revolver (1967)

Publicicon Station VI (1978)

1 comment:

Rebecca, A Clothes Horse said...

Oh my goodness, Rauschenberg is just my favorite modern artist and possibly artist of all time. I really admire how he played with every medium in art--including performance art. This post rocks.