Robert Rauschenberg
Robert Rauschenberg
Robert Rauschenbergwas an American painter and graphic artist whose early works anticipated the pop art movement. Rauschenberg is well known for his "Combines" of the 1950s, in which non-traditional materials and objects were employed in innovative combinations. Rauschenberg was both a painter and a sculptor and the Combines are a combination of both, but he also worked with photography, printmaking, papermaking, and performance. He was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1993. He became the recipient of the Leonardo...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPainter
Date of Birth22 October 1925
CityPort Arthur, TX
CountryUnited States of America
There was something about the self-confession and self-confusion of abstract expressionism - as though the man and the work were the same - that personally always put me off because at that time my focus was in the opposite direction.
This telegram is a work of art if I say it is.
Sometimes I have taken photographs and just felt so excited that I could barely hold the camera steady, and the photo was boring.
Painting is always strongest when in spite of composition, color, etc., it appears as a fact, or an inevitability, as opposed to a souvenir or arrangement.
I refuse to be in this world by myself. I want an open commitment from the rest of the people.
A canvas is never empty.
Having to be different is the same trap as having to be the same.
I don't think there's anything really wrong with influence because I think that one can use another man's art as material either literally or just implying that they're doing that, without it representing a lack of a point of view.
I think that in the last twenty years or so, there's been a new kind of honesty in painting where painters have been very proud of paint and have let it behave openly.
I was much happier when I had less responsibility... when my only responsibility was to my work and to myself.
Photography is the most direct communication in non-violent contacts.
I like photographs of anything uninteresting. Maybe just two doors on a wall... The point is to be uninteresting.
I'm quite taken aback when I get something that appears to be technically a good photograph, because it's not necessarily my intention.
You wait until life is in the frame, then you have the permission to click. I like the adventure of waiting until the whole frame is full.