Robert Rauschenberg interview (1998)

tonight a conversation with Robert Rauschenberg he is one of America's greatest living artist John Richardson the biographer of Picasso describes Russian Berg's achievements as a painter printmaker a photographer a sculptor a theatre designer a performance artist and a technologist as simply epic tonight this program airs a conversation that took place in the fall of 1997 when an audience listened in that the Guggenheim's peter b lewis theatre we follow the conversation with a walk through the exhibition joined by the artist at the Guggenheim uptown Robert Rauschenberg was born October 22nd 1925 in Port Arthur Texas an oil refinery town on the Gulf of Mexico rushon Berg later studied at the Black Mountain College in North Carolina with legendary bajas alumnus Josef Albers who became in Russian Berg's words the most important teacher he ever had after his first solo exhibition in 1951 garnered the respect of then-popular abstract expressionist Russian Berg's career took off and continued to soar today at age 72 he resides on Captiva Island Florida where he continues to work and live as an artist this is a great honor for me because of Bob and also to be here at this magnificent place I'll tell you a little behind the scenes story as we begin we're standing back and about ready to come on and there is a big container there and it has lights and things like that and I grab Bob by the children it came over and I said I look at this and I see television equipment and you look at this and you see art he said no I see the beginning of art and the point is that you want all of us to look at what's around and see what don't you feel at home feel like at home so that that you're not living in in an environment that that that you're not experiencing and it's so easy to get accustomed to everything that's around you thinking of it as just a utility or something that's invisible and anything that can reflect light is of some interest they see here is what so many people say about your work and your life there is a childlike enthusiasm there is a joy and that you approach things without a sense of risk you're just on a journey I think that an awful lot of time is sort of consumed in in apprehension and and fear and worry that that could be used in inaction I'm not fearless you know you know you can scare me the action I do how about fun-loving is that a description of you one who's enjoyed I don't separate that from just everything from everything else I mean I had no two vacations you know I mean my my greatest joy is is in in working that's when I feel a wholeness and a celebration of a unity with everything around me and I feel the less at least self-conscious when you're working yes and when did you discover art uh I always drew but I always thought that everybody drew and I was on every you know in school that was only interesting thing that I did is I was on every poster committee and you know anything that had anything to do with creativity and but I died and poor North you didn't have an idea that there was I mean it was no such thing as an argument and in those days it was a well known fact that if you're an artist that you have to go to France this is post-world War two that that's where I discovered that I was about forty some odd years late the artist had left well they were they were doing sort of Freudian Jungian dissections of great works and they were doing lousy Picasso's lousy Lachey's and I had to find out about them I did I did go to all the museum's I could get into as I got so carried away physically painting with my hands I didn't even want the it's a little neurotic but yeah okay I didn't even want the brush to come between me and the image and and I was wearing paint paint rags and I knew that this was a smart move I realized that if I had stayed with this kind of obsession of you know there that that I wasn't going to learn anything I wasn't going to develop and my girlfriend said that who became my wife Sue while that she was going to Black Mountain College and I had read about an entire magazine about the world's greatest disciplinarian in the arts at Josef Albers yeah and so I thought that's what I need discipline so I got it and who was you got disciplinary yes how did they how did you do I got discipline abuse but really cute ah he was good you consider him one of the most influential figures in your life actually his uh he was so clear in his direction that I was able to buy by contrast really a figure out what I was actually the white pennies came out of the the Albers frustration I wanted to push painting as far as I could physically imagine it and but they didn't really succeed because there's one thing that that I could not eliminate and that was size if you have size your proportion and if you have size and proportion and white is a color then you have a painting time you have an academic work you know what some people said when they saw the white painting at least some one said what does he think he is doing trying to make it look easy well that's what they said about about that's what de Kooning said about Barney Newman you once said the an artist has to start without any conceivable purpose other than curiosity and a sense of adventure not a good job not a better life I just do what I do yes it's not a question I think it I think curiosity is probably the most important energy that any creative person can have just to wonder why why not what happened after Black Mountain neither wine or why not Jesus to wonder when did you meet Jasper Johns what influence did you think you had on each other ah I think the main influence was that we were the only two people that were not trying to do abstract expressionism with only two people doing something else and so you know I mean there we were both an audience of one to each other's work a great friendship oh very it's a and I think that the thing that made us get along was the fact that we were so different our selves I would go out of the streets and get everything and he would shut the windows right but we had different studios so that was all right because I I spent my time trying to mimic what I saw outdoors and he tried to create what he felt in his head I was very tempted to to work like de Kooning how I would have loved to have done Rothko's you know I and pollux and but but with my respect for their view yeah I mean it was that was still and I think that you know if I am if there is a legacy I'm I am very happy that that I can have his enviable point of view as these people that I love so much here's what John Richardson said about you he said he's the only artist of our time who continues to address major themes of worldwide concern without bombast or can't are an aesthetic or political agenda and whose so by utilizing technology in ever more imaginative invented ways always blessed with the incomparable advantage of an innocent eye that sit well with you sure do you see that I mean when you see these things that people write about you in terms of the impact I see it with the innocent eye the other thing Richardson said what you caught my eye was it you're the painter of history and the history of now I mean you have always been that now oh that's my major influence when did you have the work the battle with alcohol well I'm still having it you think I like Diet Coke no I it does an iced tea up to here when'd you stop drinking I guess it was this to a little over two years ago now I went to Betty Ford's you finally said this is out of Cairo dying was it making a difference in your art actually didn't that's what was so deceptive about it because I wasn't a mean drunk but when my health started falling and I then I knew this drew was more coming out than going in except for the alcohol and how do you feel today other than not liking Diet Coke so much oh I feel great yeah oh yeah I did I'm much happier happier yeah well if you're if you're drunk you hate yourself too because you're drinking or because there's something else is dry depression I think depression yeah and then you drink to get over the depression and then you drink because you're drinking what were you depressed about I mean this is gonna quit causes depression it's a chemical thing it's hard to feel good about yourself if you know you if you can't live without a drink mmm what was this show supposed to be about well you you let me talk about this exhibition and what you want to come away but you said an interesting thing you said something like you know I I want to talk to the guy who did all this I do feel detached but that's mostly because I have a Seth when I'm working well that I'm invisible well I don't have anything on my mind when I go to work then what guides you a lack of purpose probably so it's just happening you don't know it doesn't happen if I don't do it but you know it's have you ever had it go ahead are you thinking have you ever had anything like the equivalent of writer's block no never a point where you could pick you had you just that you didn't it was no art for you to create there was nothing you could do no then you just do something else okay so and it is or it's not hard it doesn't matter it is art or is not art yeah how do you know the difference YouTube I don't if someone would come here no matter how much they knew whether they knew a lot about you or not much about you just knew that Bob Rauschenberg was a great American artist what would they understand about you from this exhibit and from these works of art I have no idea and even if you and I walk through this you couldn't look at it and say or it's uncomfortable to say that this says you know I mean who was it I don't know we'll just have to try it we will thank you very much I don't rehearse nor do i hey hiten thank you great to see you thank you very much a couple of days later after I evening conversation I met Bob rauschenberg at the Guggenheim Museum uptown for a walk through the exhibition tell me about this room and what we're going to see ah well these are the Glass Works are the latest things that I've done and in fact I was we were I hadn't even seen dissembled until we got them in the room why did you turn to glass the fragility the the ghostliness of it I wanted solid objects to be represented in a a more ephemeral talk to me about that medium this is a autobiographical it could be needing that is me now oh yeah and that's that's my studio there and that's my mother my father and myself want to buy you and the circle of information is a kind of a chronology up to that that moment that it was finished there's not much process there it's a vessel and I thought I would start with three circles and work out from there the top circle is obviously has to do with early and that has to the cellar panel has to do with life activities and this is covers romantic intentions romantic intentions let's go to the next okay go to the next one what are we gonna see here I love this as a matter of fact I don't know why this is still untitled because I like titling things because it's out of the thing that sort of wraps it up it was like a like nine Abani well this is a series of the available material some approached with nostalgia and some just by sheer accident the chicken I came to bomb as an accident and thought why not and the shoes were mine were worn out and but I think the interesting thing about this piece is it's the first piece that substantially moved away from the wall yeah who's the photograph I don't know but it was the right scale yeah where are we going next but shall we see next I guess the goats and all the goat there's a interesting aspect of the monogram here and that is that how I found it I was the goat that is everything else is obvious well I found it but the goat was in a used furniture office supply window and so one day I just don't know when and just went in and asked if if the if the goat was for sale and he said well I can't let you have it for less than $30 and so I had 15 with me so I paid down and and took it and told him I would come back with the other 50 and it took me about two months to get an extra $15 and I went back and the place was I had gone out of business so I'm always I always think that that one of these days he's gonna pick up a magazine he's gonna I don't think he'd be coming to the museum but he's going to recognize it as his and he's going to ask me for the other 15 dollars that's great this is what stuns me Bob it is it is the fact that you are I mean how many areas of exploration there are for you but it's technology whether it's performance whether it's painting whether it's sculpture what am i leaving out silk screens photography you were pushing here and pushing here and pushing here down the hungry hungry to know hungry to feel hungry to insatiable curiosity about everything that that I am unfamiliar with at the beginning of all these things I was unfamiliar with them isn't everything that an artist does about himself I'd like not that thing so it of course has you but it isn't you and we were talking about like a Jasper Johnson myself and what it was that that isolated us from everybody else both of us were appalled by what was going on the emotional climate and the the angst ank's was very important freud was very important in art and both of us were absolutely clean of that and were embarrassed by the notion that art would come out of pain and suffering would make better art than joy and we were a two-man united front great to have you in this gallery Guggenheim retrospective 1997 thank you very much Thank You Cheryl AC thank you for joining us Robert Rauschenberg at the Guggenheim see you next time

Channel: Manufacturing Intellect

Views: 69,780

Rating: 4.9200001 out of 5

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Id: tDUbPqBRPvY

Length: 23min 20sec (1400 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 29 2016