31 January 2007

art vs. life

Robert Rauschenberg says

• I think a painting is more like the real world if it's made out the real world.

• An empty canvas is full only if you want it to be full.

• I work in the gap between art and life.


• If you don't have trouble paying the rent, you have trouble doing something else; one needs just a certain amount of trouble.

• You begin with the possibilities of the material.

• A pair of socks is no less suitable to make a painting with than wood, nails, turpentine, oil and fabric.


i found this book on abstract expressionist, Rauschenberg years ago while browsing in the art section of the byu library, of all places. (they have a pretty amazing selection.) i can remember nudging dan and reading quote after quote to him. this man is one after my own heart. i want to climb into his head. he understands the beauty of integrating unique/impossible/ordinary materials into art in an incredible way. he not only understands it, he has mastered it. he alters the viewer's perspective in more ways than one. he sheds a little light into dark corners and subtly places his opinions/ideas in the open for all to interpret.

when i saw Bed while visiting the MOMA - i was awestruck. the twin size bed was hung just around the corner from the luscious garden room of Monet's Water Lilies which already had me swooning. once you attempt to dig into their minds and ask 'why' you begin to realize how involved the whole process an artist goes through to create/present a piece. i felt like the hovering art piece threatened to crash on top of me, though that ominous feeling didn't stop me from gaining a closer look of the drenched colorful sheets. i'll have to find that sketch book entry, i am sure i was gushing.

i heart Rauschenberg and find myself buying postcards of his works yet never sending them. selfish, i know, but perhaps i could collage them..

4 comments:

ali said...

Mmm. Rauschenberg. Thank you for the lovely reminder.

I never send my postcards, either. Instead, they are pinned to corkboard above my messy desk.

jamieanne said...

Haven't thought about Rauschenbereg in a while either. Truly inspiring stuff. I wouldn't mind having a peek inside his head either.

whit said...

we are learning about him in my Modern Art and After class..did you know that he stole that quilt from the laundry mat? The women who owned it was saying how she lost it and the next time she saw it..it was hung on a wall. He was worried that people would want to cuddle up to the bed. Mart..I too heart Rauschenberg.

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