This obituary of Robert Rauschenberg contains some great quotes from the artist…
An improvisatory process was what mattered most to him:
Screwing things up is a virtue. Being correct is never the point. I have an almost fanatically correct assistant, and by the time she re-spells my words and corrects my punctuation, I can’t read what I wrote. Being right can stop all the momentum of a very interesting idea.
Embracing change is essential:
John Cage said that fear in life is the fear of change. If I may add to that: nothing can avoid changing. It’s the only thing you can count on. Because life doesn’t have any other possibility, everyone can be measured by his adaptability to change.
Boredom and understanding are the same thing:
I usually work in a direction until I know how to do it, then I stop. At the time that I am bored or understand — I use those words interchangeably — another appetite has formed. A lot of people try to think up ideas. I’m not one. I’d rather accept the irresistible possibilities of what I can’t ignore.
Anything you do will be an abuse of somebody else’s aesthetics. I think you’re born an artist or not. I couldn’t have learned it. And I hope I never do because knowing more only encourages your limitations.
There is poetry in simple, everyday designs:
I really feel sorry for people who think things like soap dishes or mirrors or Coke bottles are ugly. Because they’re surrounded by things like that all day long, and it must make them miserable.
His description of an encounter with a woman who reacted skeptically to one of his pieces:
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.
Related
Robert Rauschenberg at artnet.com
The Works of Robert Rauschenberg
GeeIWonder
on 16 May 08Boredom and understanding are the same thing
That’s not what he’s saying.
Peter Urban
on 16 May 08I love art and how it comes alive though interpretations. I regularly read LensWork a small fine art photography publication. Sometimes the pictures don’t appear that special at first but once I read the stories from the photographers about those pictures, how they came together, what the thought process was, the emotional background, the subjects history – it all becomes very interesting. Sometimes my perspective on a picture or a series changes completely.
Love it.
Peter do you follow me @ http://twitter.com/peterurban
ML
on 16 May 08GW, he says, “At the time that I am bored or understand — I use those words interchangeably.” So I’d argue that, to him, boredom and understanding are the same thing.
GeeIWonder
on 16 May 08@ML: I can see why you’d think that, and I could certainly be wrong, but I think you have to take that quote and then look at it through the overall lense of his world view:
Almost all of your selected quotes are telling. The ‘poetry’ and ‘skeptical woman’ quotes are perhaps the easiest to relate to the theme.
This passage later on in the quote you derive the point from puts it in perspective: knowing more only encourages your limitations.
He’s talking with two voices at least.
artwells
on 16 May 08“I really feel sorry for people who think things like soap dishes or mirrors or Coke bottles are ugly. Because they’re surrounded by things like that all day long, and it must make them miserable.”
I would take this a bit further (and I’m sure there would be no disagreement from Rauschenberg) and say that those who don’t find beauty in those this are missing a great wonder.
Don Schenck
on 16 May 08Never heard of the guy.
What did he drive??
Berserk
on 16 May 08(About the woman with the dead animal)
So instead of being sceptical of his art, she was becoming bored by it?
Art should not be intellectually understood, it should be emotionally felt. In that way I agree with him – art you understand – really understand – is boring.
And on change, this from Nick Cave and TBS:
People often talk about being scared of change
But for me I’m more afraid of things staying the same
‘Cause the game is never won
By standing in any one place
For too long
GeeIWonder
on 16 May 08I think maybe one stumbling block for some here, besides trying to be too literal, is that he’s not talking like a 37signals-er. You guys design products for yourselves. You’re both the consumer and the artist.
He’s talking as an artist at some times, as a consumer of art at some others and as neither or both on occasion as well. Remember, this is a guy who worked in the ‘gap between art and life.”
So it’s not that boredom and understanding are the same at all, really. When you’re in New York, it’s day but in Beijing it’s night. Different sides of the coin.
Barbara
on 19 May 08Art you understand is not boring. If it has an interesting abstract design, values, edges and color how can it be boring. Also look at the fascinating brushstrokes. It can be boring if it is too detailed, but impressionism lends itself to your imagination and so therefore it is not boring.
Everyone seems to be trying to find themselves. Isn’t that true. If this guy is correct then finding yourself would be boring because you would then understand yourself (smile). As far as I am concerned art is intellectual and also emotional. There are degrees, of course.
Charlie Triplett
on 21 May 08At a leadership/management seminar, when talking of change, the speaker told the story of a government office transitioning to a new software. Knowing that people would, in a sense, mourn the loss of the old way, they had a “retirement party” for the old software to help people cope with the change, to “get over it” gently.
It sounds stupid, but isn’t that a gentle way to deal with that awful grieving process people have for doing it the old way?
This discussion is closed.