Robert Rauschenberg : here comes everybody

              Amie Doran: Wlieii did yon iiist see
Roberl Raiisrlienberg s wark? How are
peoplc ¡11 lile L.A. arl sceiie lieai'ing
aboiil \vlia( s liappeniug in New York?
Walter Hopps: I can't sav how il worked
beiore World War Two. becaiise I was
just loo voung. But the inimilc Worlíí
War Two is over, it s bv e-inail.
AD; As in etlu-r?
WH: ü n tlie ellier. Tlie real e-niail ol' llial
time was bv poel conrier. In die beat
period, die writers were ilineranl -
travelling all over die country. back and
íortli b'om New York lo C^aliíornia. We
iicard abonl lliings. beiore tliev were
published in die arl niagazines or
anvwhere, froin the poets. Tlie í'irst
person to tell me about Robert
Rausclienberg was the extraordinarv
artist and underground
impressarioWallace Bernian.
AD; Wliat year is this?
Wlb 1952 or ' 5 3 . Berman and 1 are
sitting aroimd his liouse drinking wine
and smoking marijuana, and he starts
lelling me abonl this arlisl he'd heard of
ihrongh Robert Greeley. Creeley was one
oí' the greal American poets who moved
through Black Mountain CoUege. New
York people would go there and stay, get
a lew meáis. Willem de Kooning came
and went. Fraiiz Kline. ,|olm Cage. That's
where Ranschenberg firsl niel mosl ol
those people. Berman made a poiiit ol
lelling me aboul liaiischenberg s work,
and said. "11 voure ever in New York,
clieck il oul. Let me know what it looks
like. Il somided really interesting lo me,
becanse l i n gelling to know Edward
Keinholz and bis work. and l'm also
seeing wlial Berman hiiiisell is making.
Some years later, wlien Bernian
started making those strange Hebraic
letter collaaes, 1 asked him, "VVlial are
diese lliings?" He said, "Thev re coming
l'rom poets - ancietU poets. Thev're
coming in on the ether. 1 dreaní them,
and 1 make them and 1 stick them down
(111 canvas.
Al l'irsi I couldn t imagine what
Rausehenberg was going to be, but he
was the one we were hearing aboul. And
then the wholc thing came tunibling out
oí' the trimk around 1954, when Rachel
Rosenthal turned up in Los Angeles. She
earned her living as a theater coach, and
slie invented the instant theater. Slie
broiight work by both Rausehenberg and
Jasper Johns with her to L.A. That was
really ihe l'irsi lime we saw it. She liad
what is argualjív the í'irst combine
painting, where Rausehenberg has put a
shelf below and a light box above one oí
the red paintings. Collage in a painting is
one ihing - that's nol going too look loo
alien. Bul ¡I voii suddenly add a jiiece oí'
ornanienlal slained glass and then a shelf
11(1111 llie sliidio. where the paint cans
llave been silting, yoii've gol a diílerent
kind oí animal.
AD: So, when did voír finallv get to meet
Rausehenberg';'
Wl 1: In '58 or "59. All this really intense
sliilT weiil on iii '59. -60. ' 0 1 . .My gallery
in L.A.. l'Vrus Ciallerv. was opeii and
luiiiiing. i was working [larl lime al the
Pasadena Museuní í'rom 1959 on,
occasionalK guesl-curaling a show l'or
Dr. Tilomas Leven, the dircclor. He was
a man nol loo inucli older than 1 who liad
come out of the PhD program al
Harvard. There was only the Los Angeles
Countv Museum, there was no Museum
of (lonlemporarv Arl. The Pasadena Arl
.Vliiseiim served dial iunclion. prior lo llie
exislence of .MOCA, for (]uile a muiiber oí'
vears. 1 was working the niglil sliil'l in a
psychiatric ward, trying lo make enough
to pav for all this...voii know. mv
hobbies. In "62 I wciil fiill lime willi llie
Pasadena .VIuseum, and never looked
back.
1 made a trip lo New York willi
Edwin .lanss. .lanss was interesled in
buying arl. and he said, lead me to some
arl l'd like lo buy. and l'll pay for all ihe
transportalion. aiid hiiicli. and diinier,
and whalever. He paid for the
liamliurgers. 1 look him lo Caslelli
gallerv, and Leo liad a (dii|ile of pieces of
Rausehenberg s up in a group show. We
wanled lo see more, so he calis
Rausehenberg up, and we go down lo the
sludio. and evervthing is silting there.
Monograiii (1955-59) is there. all kinds
of lliings Irom llie combine |)eriod are
there. The work was jusl so inercdible.
Janss turned to me and said. "This is
really wild stuff." He said. "Could we get
a couple oí'lhese?" And 1 said. "Ed. 1
thiiik il would be a good idea to only get
one." Can vou imagine? But it jusl
seemed like wrelehed excess lo buv two.
He looked aroiuid and picked oul ihe
Untitled Combine l'rom 19.5.5. llie oiie
with the white slioes and the Pl\ iiioiiih
Rock hen. Il's ralher cliallenging and
difficult, with paiming on all í'our sides
of il.
AD: When (lid voiir |irofessional
collaboralion slail?
vW
WH: Circumstances were such that I was
able to do a Johns retrospective at
Pasadena, but I wasn't there long enough
to do a show of Rauschenberg's
work.
AD: When did you leave Pasadena?
WH: 1967. Anyway, although I was a
great admirer of Rauschenberg's work I
didn't get to do anything niajor until
1976. But we knew each other. By the
mid-1960s, Rauschenberg was a verv real
presence in Southern Cahfomia. After
1962 he was represented in Los Angeles
by Virginia Dwan, whose gallery was out
in Westwood. She showed Jean Tingley
and Yves Klein as well. Whenever
Rauschenberg showed in L.A., I would go
to the show and hang out.
I had a flat behind Ferus Gallery,
upstairs on the second floor. One time
when Rauschenberg was there he saw a
little Kurt Schwitter's drawing/coUage
that I had bought at auction, a very
simple pencil drawing with a gum label
stuck on it. Up at the top of the coUage it
said Hinterhaus - behind the house -
and Schwitters had done this elabórate,
annotated diagram showing the back wall
of a house, the floor plan, and what went
on out there in what you might cali
terrain vague. I got it out of a Germán
auction, by mail. It was a crazy thing - so
simple - and it looked like one of Bob's
own drawings. And he just took it off the
wall and started walking out with it. I
said, "Wait a minute. I love that drawing,
and uh, you know, it's the only
Schwitters I have. " And Bob said, "I love
it too, and I don't have one." So I said,
"Okay, n i loan it to you." I didn't get
that thing back from him until one day in
the late seventies when 1 saw it hanging
in bis offices at Lafayette Street. I
thought it was time for it to come back to
me, so I took it back.
AD: When were you finally able to do a
show of Rauschenberg's work?
WH: The first show that I had a chance
to do was the 1976 retrospective at the
National Museum of American Art. I
realized when we were organizing it -
looking at bis files and records - that
there was an incredible body of early
work done before the combines. So in
1976 I already knew that there was a
whole lot of homework to do.
AD: Were you able to include any of the
early work?
WH: Yes, but there were only about four
or five things from the pre-combine
period in the whole show. There was one
blueprint figure, and there was 2 2 the
Lily White (ca. 1950) - White Painting
with Numbers, it used to be called. And
I knew perfectly well at the time that we
didn't have a good grip on the context.
The myth was that almost everything
from before 1954 had been destroyed,
but it was olear to me that this just
wasn't true. I made up my mind to really
research the early work - find out what
had gone on and sort it out. That was one
of the bigger extrapolations and
excavations I've ever done. A great
windfall was finding photographs
Rauschenberg had taken himself
documenting the work. We had all of
them printed out, and began tracking it
down. There were things that Cy
Twombly owned, things that Johns
owned. There was a great work that had
belonged to the composer Morton
Feldman. Things began tuming up.
Robert Rauschenberg: The Early 1950s
was the second Rauschenberg show that I
did - it opened in June of '91.
AD: You have now done three surveys of
Robert Rauschenberg's work. What kind
of perspective has that given you on the
art?
WH: Well, two prior to this one. This
time around, there was more to look at in
two ways. More early work had been
unearthed, and there was all the work
that had been made since '76.
Additionally, the files of color
transparancies and slides are very
complete now, so I was able to look at
work from "49 up through '76 more
thoroughly than 1 had twenty years ago.
By the way, I made a very conscious
decisión to not look at what we cali the
juvenalia, the student work that he might
have made prior to '49 at the Kansas
City Art Institute and the Academie
Julián in Paris. However interesting it
might be, this just wasn't the occasion to
look at it.
AD: You've called Rauschenberg the most
inventive and prolific artist of our time.
In 1996, while you were organizing this
current retrospecive, Hans Ulrich Obrist
interviewed you for ArtForum. In the
interview, you say that you are concemed
about whether one can truly represent
such a vast body of work and still have
the show seem discriminating. Hans
Ulrich Obrist replies that he would cali it
framing abundance. How do you frame
ab un dance?
WH: Well, we did it by making a catalog
that was 631 pages long, and I consider
that a concise job. 631 pages and three
physical venues in New York to fit it all in.
AD: That would be overkill with most
artists, but...
WH: It didn't seem to be this time. We
included a mere 480 Ítems in the show.
But several of those items, such as the
The 1/4 Mile or 2 Furlong Piece
(1981-present), or Hiccups (1978), each
have more than fifty parts to them.
AD: Do you want to talk about that
aspect of Rauschenberg?
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WH: I wanted to say that Rauschenberg
Í8 an instinctíve coUector and curator of
things from the real world. It starts when
he Í8 a boy growing up in Port Arthur,
Texas. In his room he made his own httle
natural history museum with wooden
milk crates. He had rocks, interestíng bits
of wood, toys in various states of
disrepair. And it's interestíng - even as a
child he was cutting out pictures that
interested him from magazines and
pasting them up on his wall. It's aü there
early on, tuid in a very conscious and
sophisticated and wonderful way, he
carries on with it. He is very much in the
tradition of the early American artist,
Charles Willson Peale. In the late 1700s,
long before there was a Snüthsonian
Institution, Peale had established a
museum in Philedelphia that had a
portrait gallery and a section that was a
whole cabinet of wonders - you know,
dinosaur bones, mechanical devices and
interesting things. It was a very practical
American versión of a wunderkammer.
Rauschenberg has always collected all
sorts of things, including the work of
other artists. In every studio of his Tve
ever seen, and in every place he's ever
lived, he has had cupboards, or ledges, or
shelves just filled up with this sort of
material.
AD: In his catalog essay for this show.
Charles Stuckey writes that in a work like
the 1/4 Mile Piece "scale is not called
upon to accommodate sweeping
ideas....ñor, least of all, to emphasize
anything. To put it another way, (the
work) is monumental in scale only."
I would add that Rauschenberg is not
elevating any one thing, or idea, or part,
over any other.
WH: I would agree. In a piece like
Scanning (1963), you have an image of
the kind of found urban sculpture
- ventilators and water tanks stuck on
tops of buildings - that can make the art
in corporate lobbies look absurd. They
have a very strong presence. And Bob has
juxtaposed it with an image of the Merce
Cunningham dancers. Or he'll put New
York City street signs and buildings
together with the spiendid Bemini altar
in St. Peter's. It speaks of his high regard
for both. With Rauschenberg, it's not an
either/or, it's an and.
AD: When you organized this current
retrospective, you were looking at ahnost
50 years of work. In what ways would
you say that clarified things, £ind in what
ways did it complícate them?
WH: With this show matters were made
much easier. Well, let me start at the
beginning. First the difficult part. The
artist has been enormously productive. So
that's always difficult. How do you get
the show down to a mere, two, three, or
four hundred works? That part was
arduous. What was thrilling this time
around, was not feeling the need to
reargue every theoretical aspect of the
work - what a combine was, what
primary structures were, why this stuff
was £irt. One could see it for the sensuous
work that it is. Beyond being a
conceptual pioneer, Rauschenberg is a
lyric artist of the highest order. That was
the great joy this time.
When you're a true poet of the object,
which Robert Rauschenberg is, you can
take things as found in life, and run them
across the gap, and suddenly they're
given a poetic tum as art. He combines
images the way poets put words together.
What's important to understand when
looking at the work of a number of
American eirtists, especially
Rauschenberg, is that the use of
disjunctive images has been going on in
America for over 150 years. Long before
there was surrealism, which doesn't
officially come until 1922, Edgar Alien
Poe was writing stories like The Fall of
the House of Usher. Frederick Usher
played music that is perhaps the first
thought of the kind of sound
compositions Cage would come up with.
One of the better descriptions of what
Jackson PoUock or de Kooning were up
to, not to mention Emst, is in Poe's
descriptions of Usher's infernal,
irrational, disturbing paintings. T.S.
Eliot, Ezra Pound, and Hilda Doolittle all
admired Poe. Their metaphors are jolting,
the imagery is vivid and unsettling. In
France, Lautremont is writing about the
chance meeting of a sewing machine and
an umbrella on a disecting table. The
French symbolists took a great interest in
Poe. He's a major source for European
surrealism, and he haunts the work of the
American surrealists Man Ray and Joseph
Comell. His use of the disjunctive image
as metaphor makes him part of the
lineage that includes Rauschenberg and
the artists who come after him.
AD: How would you describe Robert
Rauschenberg's place in that lineage?
WH: Robert Rauschenberg occupies a
unique position in the art of his time. He
is the crucial bridge between one
generation of American artists - De
Kooning, Bamett Newman, Clyfford Still,
and Kline - and the artists working from
the later '50s on: Johns, Warhol and the
pop artists, and the artists who emerge in
the 1980s - Richard Prince, Haim
Steinbach, and so on.
From the later '40s on Rauschenberg
was living in New York with his young
wife and coUaborator, Susan Weil.
Through her family he knew Charles
Egan, who showed de Kooning, Kline,
and Joseph Comell. Betty Parsons showed
Pollock, Newman, Still, and Ad
Reinhardt. In 1950, rather then go to the
gallery where he had a connection
through his wife's parents, he took some
smaller paíntings in to Betty Parsons.
That's how it was done in those days. It
was before people brought in sUdes.
Parsons set the paintings out, and was
sitting there quietly, and he asked, "What
do you think?" And the famous response
was, "I think I could show you next
spring." He was not asking for a show.
He just wanted an outside opinión from a
professional. Anyway, he kept his mouth
shut. He was totally stunned and
elated.
By the mid-1950s Robert
Rauschenberg had brought some very
disparate elements into play in his work.
To begin with, he was a consummate
abstract expressionist. It's worth noting
that Clyfford Still approved of Betty
Parson's decisión. He carne with her to
Bob's studio to help pick out the work for
the 1951 show. By 1953, you can see
how thoroughly Rauschenberg is a part of
the New York School. He's doing black
paintings and earth toned works clearly
related to the world of de Kooning and
Khne. as well as the Elemental
Sculptures. Music Box (Elemental
Sculpture) (ca 1953) was one that
Duchamp particularly liked. You tip it,
and move it around, and the stones go
clank, clunk, clunk, bump - making
clanks when they hit the nails, and thuds
when they hit the wood. It's a basic kind
of music. Duchamp said, "Ah yes, it
seems to me I've heard that song before."
I especially love Untitled (Elemental
Sculpture) [spike and block] (ca. 1953).
He's taken an ordinary thing from the
world, a nail, and given it all the dignity
of a Giacometti figure. The Elemental
Sculptures are like little moniunents
made from the humble stuff we just
normally pay no attention to, or throw
away. You begin to think about that kind
of thing, and sooner or later you're going
to end up with a painting of a Campbell's
soup can.
AD: Would you say the Elemental
Sculptures are also New York School
work?
WH: Absolutely. They resemble works
within the abstract expressionist canon ,
and they also relate to the works of
Aaron Siskind, who taught at Black
Mountain - those beautiful rock walls and
simple textures. Siskind was the abstract
expressionist photographer, if you will.
Rauschenberg's most importtmt early
photographs tum up in this context. He
studied photography at Black Mountain
with Hazel Larsen Archer, who he said
was very open to what you took pictures
of but who made sure you leamed your
darkroom techiniques. He was looking at
the commonplace world without any
preconception about having to take
pictures of important people or dramatic
events or wonders of nature. He found
the universe right the edge of his own
garden. He photographed a window with
the shade drawn down. Most people
would say that is a picture of nothing. He
photographed an oíd carriage where the
blackness of the carriage's interior filis up
most of the frame, and there is a little
light coming through an opening in the
center. His masterpiece was Ceiling +
Lightbulb (1950) - I finally figured out
that it was taken in Knox Martin's studio.
Never forget that the first Rauschenberg
to go into a museum was a photograph.
Edward Steichen bought two for the
Museum of Modem Art in 1952.
At the same time, Rauschenberg is
making minimal and conceptual works.
This is the First Halfofa Print Designed
to Exist in Passing Time (1949), is just
fiendishly simple. It's an amazing thing
to have made so early on. The work
consists of 14 prints made from a single
woodblock. For each successive print,
Rauschenberg carved another Une into
the block. It starts solid black, and just
goes through this process. Eventually he
would have cut away all the wood that
was left to print the black.
AD: And this is the first work in the
show?
WH: Yes. Next there are the modular
divisions in the White Paintings.
AD: That's the minimal element.
WH: Well, they're conceptual, too. There
was a set of matte white paintings, and
then there was a set of matte black ones -
most of which he painted over. When he
didn't have canvas or money, he just used
one. Some artists, when they want to get
busy in the studio, they will grab
whatever is at hand. Bob painted over
some great early works. The White
Paintings were modular; three, or four, or
five, or seven panels. John Cage called
them landing strips for shadows and
motes of dust. They inspired his work for
piano: 4'33''. Each movement begíns
when the pianist opens the keyboard lid,
and ends when he closes it. Cage felt that
the music could be all the the little bits of
noise - the coughs, and harumphings,
and shufflings - that actually went on in
that time span.
The Print in Time was the first of
three important examples of an Unear
work whose subject is the process of its
creation. The next is Cy + Román Steps
(1952). There were quite a number of
pictures, but he edited them down to five
- just enough to make the movement of
the person approaching the camera clear.
The third is the Automobile Tire Print
(1953). The whole thing is 22 feet long,
but it could just keep going forever. The
Tire Print is, of course, is an additive
156
Miiseuiii oi Modern Art: PurcliasiMl ilitu a uiíl ol
process. lie nuikes (lie íj'a.icd De kooiiiiig
Dnuiiníí in llic same Ncaí'. I le said. "11
1 III "oiii"" lo era.se a (lia\\¡ii<;. il lias Id he
oiie I reallv admire. Aiid die astounding
lliing is (lial de Kooniíig liad enoiígh
regard for die VNIIOIC idea to go aloiig il.
What a chaiii]) he was. /\s dilTereiil as
tliev were, he kiiew ihal I3(il> admired liis
work. And he said. "W ell. okax. il \\c are
güiiig lo do il. leí s ge( a realK' good one.
He iiarrowed il dowii lo 3 drawings and
leí Boh elioose. And lliev were reallv good
ones. De Kooning liad |)ieked drawings
llial liad grease peiicil and smears of
graphile on llieiii. He said, "I ni nol goiiig
lo make it easv lor vou - il shoiildn I he
too easv."
AD: So hv 1')53 lliere are ahsiraiM
expressionist. miniínalisl. and coiicepliial
eleineiils in Ranselienherg s work.
WII: rile iiiosl imporlanl lliing is llie way
loiind iniages and ohjecls are already
liirning ii]). Hausehenberg s work Iroiii
ihe iiiiddle lü'ties on had a profonnd
eITpcl on a voiinger generalion of
American artists. Soiiie verv earlv
|)ainl¡ngs have hils of collage in llieiii. \
kev work is I iilillcd (iinilíc bliick
painting ivith Ashville Citizpii) (1').'j2),
which introduced unemhellished
newspaper sheets as pan ol' ihe
composilion. .MI soi'ls ol' ollier malerial
hegins to appear in llie red painlings. I?\
llie lale fall of •53, '54 Raiischenheri;; is
).'5. .M(iii(i|iiiiil. 1() 1/2 X 2()4 1/2 iiirhes. Coüahoralioii willi .jolin Cagc. CÁ)llecliuii lile San Fraiiciseu
Pliyllis W anís. -MI plioicigiaplis idiirlesy (if llie Artist. © Rühert Rausclienherg. Licensed by V.A.G.A.
l'liol()ma|ilis li\ VA (:lia|)|i('l. Inc.
iising 1(11111(1 images l'roni tlie media as
elemeiils wilhiii ahslract painlings. Red
palch. \('II()w palcli. irees. Rirelí Irees hv
a lake. ('olor, gesture, iriiage. .Vlore
gesdires. anollier image. Il slaris
happening in ils earliesi forní aroiind
1952. Iml it gets reallv goiiig in 1')5.'5-54.
We iiow know tliat as earlv as 10,52.
Haiischenherg was makiiig whal he ealled
Iransl'er drawings. assemhling inagazine
and newspaper images and using solvenrs
10 transl'er lliem oiilo good paper. Rather
lliaii iisiiig a leeimi(|iie o\ cniting or
tearing and |)asting down a la Scliwitters,
he was niaking a iiew kind ol monopriiil.
11 was aii exIraordinaiN advance - a
collage willi a homogeneoiis surface.
'VViey wei-e one of a kind woi'ks on paper.
which is whv he ealled them drawings.
I lie\ hecame. lor liiin. Iiis mediinn l'or
líi)licrl KaiiselieiiliiMg. Ilcil Ini/xir/. l').')-t. Oil.
I'ahiic And Wdod On Canvas. US .\ lí! jiiclies.
Phofo dedil: Burckhaidl .'323.
doiiig stndies.
AD: Yon told me llial diere were oiiK a
few convenlional drawings in tlie wliole
show.
Wll: Raiischenberg is nol in volved witli
llie graiid western tradition of drawing in
lile wav thal .lasper .loiiiis is. .lohns's
drawing is liravnra drawing. heaiitil'nl
drawing, Üie kind of drawing ihat
Cezarme, or Seurat, woiild liave
underslood. Rauschenberg invented a
new wav of (Irawing. riiere are onlv
ahoul foiii' or fixc IradilionalK iiiaile
drawings in lilis show. and ihev re verv
diagranimalic in a wav. Perhaps die niost
beautiful is die Üiird slndy for the final
State of Moriograrn. Another is a \'er\'
slraighd'orward Iracing of a pair of feet. I
said. '"W'liose l'eel are ihose'r' He said,
•"They re mine. " And 1 said, "I low did
yon Irace iheiirr'" ,\iid he said, "With
dilliculty - squattiiig down and ¡iisi
pushing the pencil aroiind. 1 could l'eel
iiiy way, biit 1 eoiildnt see whal 1 was
doing." And he sniiled and said, "I sort of
liked ihat."
AD: When did he start to scale up the
Iransl'er drawings':'
Wll: The firsi silkscreens come aroiind
1''()1. liis hreakllirough was discovering
a way hir diese hiiiiid and assemliled
iniages lo he hoih inliinale works on
|iaper and. lliningh llie silkscreen
procesH. iiKiiuinienUil works on canvas.
Barge (1962-6.3) i.s a tliirlx-lwo-CooI-loiijí
jjaiiitiiig wilh liiige iinages on ¡I. I lie lalc
I3r. Alkíii Solomon did die iirst niuseuiii
retrospectivo oí' Rauschenberg's work at
tlic .lewisli Museuní iii 1963. And Bob
managed lo finisli Barge jnst iii time to
squeeze lulo tlie sliow.
Recently, he s beeri able to make what
are. in effect. giaiit watercolors í'rom
loiiiid iiiiages - and his own photographs
too, by the wav - wilh ihe Iris prmter.
More and more he uses his own
])hotographs.
AD: Did
Musemn:
sea the show at the jewish
WH: Yes. I (Üd. I saw both the
Ranschenlierg show and the Johns show
two vears kiter. Sok)nion did a woník'rlnl
¡ob. in die kne 'r>Os and earl\' •6()s. lie
ran the Jewish Museum as the hvehest
museum for contemporarv arl in New
York. Neither the Whitnev ñor the
Museum of Modern Art were. well,
suffieienllv responsive. let's pnt il diaf
way. to the new direetions in art llia(
were beginning to come up in the later
l'il'ties and earlv sixiies. and there was
room for a serious knnsthalk'. Jt was
anuizing what was siiown there. Solomon
took an iiiternalional \iew. lie did
Ranschenberg. lie did Johns. he did Vves
Klein's Iirst nuisenin show in New York.
AD: ^du were saving ihat Ranschenberg s
woi'k hall a proround elTecI on die ne.\l
generalion ol' American iirlists.
Wll: Raiischenberg has bcen coming iip
wilh i-ele\anl sliilT for al leasl lliree
generalions ol' arlisis. First oí' all, í'or liis
contemporaries - especiallv Jasper Jolins
and Cv Twomblv. Rauschenberg leí I
(laslelli lo johns s slnilio. and Leo gave
Jasper a show. Bul Ijeí'ore we have Johns
and Rauschenberg. we have
Raiischeiibcií; and rwombK. and llicir
Hiilirrl Hiiu.sclirnliri;;. I.iiirn Coinbcd (Fool Dniíriiig). BoiK iriirliig wilh Inuiid lahric.
H 1/2 .\ 1.0 1/2 inclies. Photo: Dorolhv Zeidiiuiii, 1990.
trip inlo líiirope and Norlh .M'iica in
19.")12/19.^).'5. 'rhe\ iid'ormed eacli ollicrs'
woi'k in reall\ imporlanl wa\s.
I'foin diere, diere aie iwo palliwa\s
oiil oí Raiischeiibcrg s work. On one
liaiid \ou \c gol llie Kric niinimalism ol'
RolierI Rvman and Bi'ice Marden s
modular painlings. On ihc ollier liand,
\(iu lia\(" wlial is going lo be. b\ 19()2.
Pop Arl - lile worlil ol R(iscni|iiisl.
Warliol. and Lichlenslein. RoseiK|insl is
ihe one w lio I l'eel is elosest lo
Raiisehenberg s poiiic spiril. \\ arliol
could !)(• deailpaii. and Lichlenslein is
ol'lcn \er\' loriiial. Bul ihcre are
narralixes and poelics in bolli Roseiii|iusl
and Raiischenberg - llie use oí disjimctive
\isiial iniages as inela|ilior. Kinallv. ihere
is wlial 111 cali Pop .Xrl's conlinuing
aílermalh - llie neo-coiiceplual art that
appears in llie earlv 'SOs. A plirase John
(<agc lo\('il. Iroiii l'iiincgdii'.s IIdke, is
"Uere comes evervbodv."
A l'ascinaling bil ol'crosscnrrent
iiniiKcs Rausclicnberg s l'n^ncli
conleniporaries. When ^'ves Klein carne
lo .America a \ car or so belore he died,
Rauschenberg was the person lie
especiallv wanled lo iiieel. líe was
inlcresled in ollicr aspeéis ol
Rauschenberg s work as well. bul he
recognizcd a side lo Rauschenberg dial
157
Robert Rauschenberg. Soundings. Mirrored plexiglás and silkscreened ink on plexiglás, widí concealed electric lights and electronic components,
96 X 432 X 54 inclies
ril cali transcendental. Klein did his
earliest monochromes in the same years
that Rauschenberg was doing the White
Paintings. Rauschenberg himself
described the fVhite Paintings in a
curious way: "One white - as in one
God." He was the first person in America
to acquire an Yves Klein - they traded
work.
AD: The 1976 retrospective focused
primarily on the combines. You have said
that one of the revelations when working
on the "Early 1950s ' show was your
discovery of Rauschenberg as a painter.
WH: That's true. Look at that whole little
abstract outburst on the nose of
Monogram. That's the sign of the painter.
I think "Wager" is one of the better
looking abstract expressionist paintings.
¡Vager, Canyon, and Winter Pool, all of
1959, structurally and visually, look
fantastic togetlier. They make an
extraordinary set. They are some of the
most beautiful, delectable things in the
show, things that I would hold up to any
number of the post-impressionist
paintings that looked so gorgeous to our
parents and grand parents.
AD: The '76 show downplayed the
technology pieces. Was it easier to look at
them this time aroinid?
WH: Yes, as a matter of fact. The
humanness of them carne through. In
Sounclings{'\96R). when you clap yotn-hands,
and all these chairs appear, it's
like a whole troupe of dancers appearing.
A chair is one of those objects absolutelv
and intimately associated with the human
body. In the Carnal Clocks, we're seeing
all these discreet sepia images of male
and female genitalia, only coming on al
certain times. Human presence is implied
in all of them.
Robert Rauschenberg. The 1/4 Mile Piece or 2 Furlong Piece. The Guggenheim Museum at Ace Gallery N.Y.
From Robert Rauschenberg: A Retrospective. Photo: E. Labenski. © SRGF, New York.
AD: Do vou think that's more obvioiis
now?
WH: Much more obvious now than it was
at the time. They seem much less
mechanical now. Tinguely and
Rauschenberg really hit it off, by the
way. They feh at home with each other,
they were talking the same language.
There is a goofy humor and
anthropomorphizing in Tinguely's
machines. They were kind of
disfunctional - that is to say that they
were more hke human beings than
machines are supposed to be. We make
the machine a paradigm for human
behavior, something that does everything
right. But that's not the way it is with
human beings. Both Rauschenberg and
Tinguely understood that. They had a
great rapport.
When this exhibition opened in New
York, it was the first time that the
Quarter Mile Piece had ever been seen in
its entirety. It's a httle more than 440
yards long, with three dimensional
elements that pop up in it. There was no
room to put it in the Guggenheim, so we
leased Ace Gallery. It was the only work
that Rauschenberg wanted to install
himself, so he set off with a crew to do
that while I was working on the rest of the
exhibition. A few days before the opening
he came by and said, "Come on down, I
want you to look at it. There's just one
thing left to do, and FU be doing that
while you're looking around." Having
walked around the piece once, I sat there
on this bench that he had made, this
thing that looks like a bus-stop bench out
of 2001: A Space Odessey. Near it is an
oíd oil barrel, a sign that says "End
Construction," and a wheelbarrow - a
heavy-duty one, encrusted with rust and
oíd cement - filled with dirt. He had had
somebody bring him a little prickly pear
cactus. He comes in with his cactus and
plants it in the wheelbarrow and turns
around and smiles and says, "Fm done."
It was perfect. The last thing he put into
his show was a living thing. It survived
the whole show.