RIP, Robert Rauschenberg
True story. Way back when, I transferred reluctantly from one college's art program to another at a smaller school when I ran out of scholarship. I resented the new program unmercifully, not least because it was full of emo-looking posers who couldn't paint to save their lives. An even bigger issue was that I was already an upperclassman with two years of painting and drawing down, but this new school felt so highly of their program that - before they would count my credit as anything but elective - they wanted me to re-sit drawing 1 in their program...you know, just to get a "feel for it."
Anyway, the ditzy TA teaching the class had us go round-robin in an ice breaker on the first day. Each person was to stand up, say their name, where they were from, and their favorite artist.
I got to be last in the circle.
Amid the reek of patchouli, I grimaced as each of the sullen kids in the class stood up and tried to outdo each other in the game of who could name the most obscure favorite artist. The circle started at Kollwitz, who I like... went immediately to Chagall... and then veered off the map. By the time it got to me, the purple haired kid next to me was waxing on about some unknown artist he saw in a street gallery when his family took a trip to Sweden when he was 13.
My favorite was Rauschenberg.
I was met with a mix of looks from blank stares to smirks to looks of pity that I would pick somebody so "mainstream." The TA said something to the effect of, "oh, well yes.... he's certainly well known, but I was looking for somebody more vital to your personal experience."
I archly replied I was unaware that an artist's success precluded them from being "vital," and the class went on.
Three weeks later, after the TA told me that she thought I might enjoy and do well in a painting course (really??? you think? after four semesters of it??), I left the program and turned my minor into my major, determined that I didn't need a piece of paper from this particular university to do art and/or design. I built a spec portfolio and got a design job anyway, despite them. I left them drawing from books (not life??) and puffing their chests over their latest high-school poem scrawled on a bed sheet. High art, after all.
My favorite artist is still Rauschenberg.
Ever since I was first exposed to him in the 1980's, at a retrospective in D.C.'s National Gallery, I have been enamored with his work and the fact that such a creative visionary... something of a wild beast in the art world... can come from my bleak and beautiful home state of Texas.
Today is a sad day, and I reckon he will always remain my favorite artist.
.
Anyway, the ditzy TA teaching the class had us go round-robin in an ice breaker on the first day. Each person was to stand up, say their name, where they were from, and their favorite artist.
I got to be last in the circle.
Amid the reek of patchouli, I grimaced as each of the sullen kids in the class stood up and tried to outdo each other in the game of who could name the most obscure favorite artist. The circle started at Kollwitz, who I like... went immediately to Chagall... and then veered off the map. By the time it got to me, the purple haired kid next to me was waxing on about some unknown artist he saw in a street gallery when his family took a trip to Sweden when he was 13.
My favorite was Rauschenberg.
I was met with a mix of looks from blank stares to smirks to looks of pity that I would pick somebody so "mainstream." The TA said something to the effect of, "oh, well yes.... he's certainly well known, but I was looking for somebody more vital to your personal experience."
I archly replied I was unaware that an artist's success precluded them from being "vital," and the class went on.
Three weeks later, after the TA told me that she thought I might enjoy and do well in a painting course (really??? you think? after four semesters of it??), I left the program and turned my minor into my major, determined that I didn't need a piece of paper from this particular university to do art and/or design. I built a spec portfolio and got a design job anyway, despite them. I left them drawing from books (not life??) and puffing their chests over their latest high-school poem scrawled on a bed sheet. High art, after all.
My favorite artist is still Rauschenberg.
Ever since I was first exposed to him in the 1980's, at a retrospective in D.C.'s National Gallery, I have been enamored with his work and the fact that such a creative visionary... something of a wild beast in the art world... can come from my bleak and beautiful home state of Texas.
Today is a sad day, and I reckon he will always remain my favorite artist.
.