So. Rauschenberg. When I was in community college, say, '98 or '99, (where does the time go...?) this big Rauschenberg retrospective happened in Houston. My mind was in the beginnings of the expansion of experiencing art, in the larger sense, and Rauschenberg was something that I had only experienced through textbooks. A group of students from San Antonio College including me got a school van and a faculty member and made the trip to Houston to knock out this city-wide show. The Houston Museum of Fine Arts, the Contemporary Art Museum, and the Menil Collection were all part of this massive show of the Texas native. I stood in front of Bed, the Erased De Kooning drawing, the weird kinetic and theatre based stuff, the 1/4 Mile Furlough piece, and more recent print works. I had never been to Houston, never been to a real big, modern art museum, never stood in front of a historical, important, key work of contemporary art by a living artist, much less one from my home state, a state whose borders pretty much defined my entire world at that point.
Rauschenberg has never fallen out of favor with me; I have never been hesitant to admit him as an influence, as an inspiration, or as being a fan of him. It is easy, when being involved with artists, and in the art world, to take stock of the accepted pantheon and then dismiss it for the new, for the momentous. As it is with the mission of the avant-garde, that is a vital and important tactic in the dialogue. Let us not forget, however, that the average person who participates in this culture, while assimilated perhaps to the trickled-down ideas and imagery that one such as Rauschenberg brought forth as art, they as a whole remained uninformed about the man, the life, and the work that is responsible for it. Artists especially should remain cognizant of the grand narrative of art history they participate in, especially if who they deem to be the protagonists of it are still alive to contribute to it. Even if it seems their story has been told, the cachet earned in their previous contributions are legitimate criteria for evaluation of their later work.
To understand any contemporary art today, fully, and with maximum cognizance, one must understand the context that a force of nature such as Robert Rauschenberg occupied. Anyone claiming the title of artist in the 21st century are heirs of him and his ideas, whether they know it or not. It is this unconscious derivation of ideas that, in my opinion, cement the brilliance of those ideas, and their originators.
