"I never learned to play baseball or any of those games that had rules."

My first show with Stage Troupe, bobrauschenbergamerica, in 2004, was my first introduction to, among many things, American artist Robert Rauschenberg. Famous for his works that combined objects with traditional media, Rauschenberg worked opposite the abstract expressionist movement and at least partially influenced later pop art. In a lot of ways, Rauschenberg indirectly affected my college career; and on Monday, May 12, 2008, he passed away at the age of 82.

I caught an hour-long documentary on his work tonight on, of all places, Ovation TV. I learned that Rauschenberg grew up in Texas, and it seems he didn't experience art ("art was not a part of our lives," a line from bobrauschenbergamerica by Charles Mee) until he was almost 20. He attended Kansas City Art Institute for a short while (which might have been my alma matter, had life gone a different path) and then a university in Paris to study art. In his documentary interview, Rauschenberg said he'd realized that Paris had been the place to be for artists 45 years prior. "I was in the wrong place at the wrong time," he said. So he went to New York.

In 1953, Rauschenberg shocked the art world with his "Erased De Kooning," which De Kooning himself actually gave Rauschenberg. About the piece, in the show, Rauschenberg said: ""I kept making drawings myself and erasing them. And that just looked like an erased Rauschenberg. You know, it was nothing. So I figured out that it had to begin as art. So it was going to be a De Kooning. It was going to be an 'important' piece. You see how ridiculously you have to think, in order to make this work?" Here is the clip of him telling the story of the piece, from the documentary:


The New York Times wrote on May 14 that, "He loved making something out of nothing." And to me, that's as inspiring as anything.