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Robert Rauschenberg Quotes

1925–2008 United States

Milton Ernest "Robert" Rauschenberg (January 22, 1925 – May 12, 2008) was an American artist who came to prominence in the 1950's. His work is regarded as a transition from Abstract Expressionism to the media-saturated surfaces of Pop art, together with the art of Jasper Johns; both lived and worked for years in the same studio in New York and discussed their art frequently; they were deeply influenced by the ideas of John Cage and involved with choreograph Merce Cunningham.

United States
Artists
Painters
Sculptors

Random Robert Rauschenberg quote

11 quotes

I think a picture is more like the real world when it is made out of the real world.

Kenneth Coutts-Smith (1970)

It is completely irrelevant that I am making them. 'Today' is their creator.

Painting relates to both art and life. Neither can be made. (I try to act in the gap between the two)

[Art is] a means to function thoroughly and passionately in a world that has a lot more to it than paint.

The Bride and the Bachelors (1962)

Work is my joy.. .Work is my therapy, I don't know anybody who loves work as much as I do.

I used to think of that line in Allen Ginsberg's 'Howl', about the 'sad cup of coffee'.. .I have had cold coffee and hot coffee and lousy coffee, But I've never had a sad cup of coffee.

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.

Wendy Richmond (2009)

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.

N.M. Kelby (2009)

[I] could not design forms and colors that would achieve some preconceived result.. .I wasn't going to hire them. I was more interested in working WITH them than in their working for me.

Every minute everything is different everywhere. It is all flowing.. .The duty or beauty of a painting is that there is no reason to do it nor any reason not to. It can be done as a direct act or contact with the moment and that is the moment you are awake and moving. It all passes and is never true literally as the present again leaving more work to be done.

[we gave] permission to do what we wanted.. .It would be hard to imagine my work at that time [c. 1956 – 1960] without his [ Jasper John's] encouragement.

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Robert Rauschenberg (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.