"The artist's job is to be a witness to his time in history."
He is one of the Husband’s favorite figures of the 20th century & a major inspiration for his own work. Unfortunetley…or maybe fortunatley, I am no Jasper Johns. But as we watched the documentry- Robert Rauschenberg: Man At Work, I was amazed at the similarity in Rauschenberg & my husband’s demeanor & artistic process.
Robert Rauschenberg was an irrepressibly prolific American artist who reshaped art in the 20th century. His work gave new meaning to sculpture. A painter, photographer, printmaker, choreographer, onstage performer, set designer &, in later years, even a composer, Rauschenberg defied the traditional idea that an artist would stick to one medium or style. He pushed, prodded & pndered all the mediums in which he worked.
Following after Marcel Duchamp, & Joseph Cornell he obscured the lines between painting & sculpture, painting & photography, photography & printmaking, sculpture & photography, sculpture & dance, sculpture & technology, technology & performance art, art & life.
John Cage: “Beauty is now underfoot wherever we take the trouble to look.” Through Rauschenberg’s work, people could see that anything, including junk off the street, could be the stuff of art, & that it could be the stuff of art as a kind of poetry in the consumer glut, which Rauschenberg celebrated. Before Andy Warhol, there was Robert Rauschenberg.
Rauschenberg: “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, & it must make them miserable.”
He had generosity of spirit, uninhibited & mostly good-natured. When he became rich, he gave millions of dollars to charities for women, children, medical research, other artists & Democratic politicians.
In the mid-1950s, Rauscheberg began a passionate affair with the artists- Cy Twombly, They traveled together to Africa & Europe. Rauschenberg began to collect & assemble objects: bits of rope, stones, sticks, bones, which he showed to a dealer in Rome who exhibited them under the title “scatole contemplative,” or Thought Boxes. They were shown in Florence, where an outraged critic suggested that Mr. Rauschenberg toss them in the river. He thought that sounded like a good idea. After saving a few pieces for himself & friends, he found a secluded spot on the River Arno. Rauschenberg wrote to the critic: “I took your advice.”
Around that time Rauschenberg met Jasper Johns, then unknown, who had a studio in the same building in Lower Manhattan where Mr. Rauschenberg had a loft. Their love affair over the next years went hand in hand with the creation, by both artists, of some of the most groundbreaking works of postwar art.
Rauschenberg: “We gave each other permission to do what we wanted.” Living together in a series of lofts in Lower Manhattan until the 1960s, they exchanged ideas & supported themselves designing window displays for Tiffany & Company & Bonwit Teller.
His association with theater & dance had already begun by the 1950s, when he began designing sets & costumes for Merce Cunningham & composer John Cage. In 1963 he choreographed “Pelican,” which he performed on roller skates while wearing a parachute & helmet of his design to the accompaniment of a taped collage of sound.
I was sad to learn of his passing in the spring of 2008. He is one of my favorite figures of the 20th century, & I loved reading about his circle. Every famous gay man comes out eventually, even if it only happens when he dies. His obituary may be the first chance to know the truth about a gay man's life, but sadly this is not always the case. Even people who were out & proud can find themselves pushed back in the closet after they die. Lovers are suddenly out of the picture, & longtime relationships are refered to as “companions”, in a way that would never happen straight people. Some publications still use the euphemism: “never married."
When Rauschenberg died 2 years ago there was little mention of his long time same sex realtionships. He did marry, but was divorced more than 50 years ago.There is a Portland connection; his son from that marriage- Christopher is a talented photographer who lives & exhibits here. Rauschenberg had relationships with Cy Twombly & Jasper Johns among others, & he was part of a group of gay men working in different disciplines, but all bouncing off ideas & inspiring each other: John Cage, Merce Cunningham & Jasper Johns. “He is survived... by his longtime companion- Darryl Pottorf” claimed the NY Times.” Nice. Maybe when I go, my obit will state: “He lived with his roomate of 50 years”.
I feel an artist’s sexuality is almost always instrumental to their work. Art Critic- Robert Hughes: “Rauscheberg’s art contained some of the few great icons of male homosexual love in modern culture". Other critics have argued that his earlier work was about the artist not revealing himself, how could a gay man in the 1950s? But ignoring Rauschenberg's gayness at the time of his passing was just offensive. How an artist's sexuality has influenced their work & shaped their life should not be a secret that they take to their graves.
