Best 76 quotes of Robert Rauschenberg on MyQuotes

Robert Rauschenberg

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    Robert Rauschenberg

    A canvas is never empty.

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    Robert Rauschenberg

    And all of this, all these physical aspects of painting at that time excited me very much. You could do a picture in just black and white. I mean all the things, whether you're soliciting permission or not, do give you permission

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    Robert Rauschenberg

    And also the new excitement and variety of ways that the abstract expressionists were applying paint. You could put it on as though it were colored air and it would be painting.

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    Robert Rauschenberg

    And I think that even today, New York still has more of this unexpected quality around every corner than any place else. It's something quite extraordinary

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    Robert Rauschenberg

    An empty canvas is full only if you want it to be full.

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    Robert Rauschenberg

    An empty canvas is full.

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    Robert Rauschenberg

    A newspaper that you're not reading can be used for anything; and the same people didn't think it was immoral to wrap their garbage in newspaper.

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    Robert Rauschenberg

    A pair of socks is no less suitable to make a painting with than wood, nails, turpentine, oil and fabric.

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    Robert Rauschenberg

    Art is a means to function thoroughly and passionately in a world that has a lot more to it than paint.

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    Robert Rauschenberg

    Being right can stop all the momentum of a very interesting idea.

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    Robert Rauschenberg

    But I was in awe of the painters; I mean I was new in New York, and I thought the painting that was going on here was just unbelievable

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    Robert Rauschenberg

    By the time you establish your priorities, there really isn't any fun or need to interest yourself in what you're doing. And this I find disastrous.

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    Robert Rauschenberg

    Curiosity is the main energy.

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    Robert Rauschenberg

    Even at this late date, I go into my studio, and I think 'Is this going to be it? Is it the end?' You see, nearly everything terrorizes me. When an artist loses that terror, he's through.

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    Robert Rauschenberg

    Every time I've moved, my work has changed radically.

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    Robert Rauschenberg

    For me there is no difference between art and life.

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    Robert Rauschenberg

    For the first time, I wasn't embarrassed by the look of beauty, of elegance, because when you see someone who has only one rag as their property, but it happens to be beautiful and pink and silk, beauty doesn't have to be separated... I have always said that you shouldn't have biases, you shouldn't have prejudices. But before that [before his trip to India, circa 1975] I'd never been able to use purple, because it was too beautiful.

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    Robert Rauschenberg

    Having to be different is the same trap as having to be the same.

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    Robert Rauschenberg

    I always have searched for a point of view that a participant could change.

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    Robert Rauschenberg

    I am sick of talking about What and Why I am doing. I have always believed that the WORK is the word. Action is seen less clearly through reason. There are no shortcuts to directness.

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    Robert Rauschenberg

    I don't want a picture to look like something it isn't. I want it to look like something it is.

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    Robert Rauschenberg

    I don't like masterpieces having one-night stands in collectors' homes between auctions.

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    Robert Rauschenberg

    I don't mess around with my subconscious

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    Robert Rauschenberg

    I don't think any one person, whether artist or not, has been given permission by anyone to put the responsibility of the way things are on anyone else

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    Robert Rauschenberg

    I don't think he (Joseph Albers, fh) ever realized that it was his discipline that I came for. Besides, my response to what I learned from him was just the opposite of what he intended.. ..I was very hesitant about arbitrarily designing forms and selecting colors that would achieve some predetermined result, because I didn't have any ideas to support that sort of thing - I didn't want color to serve me, in other words.

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    Robert Rauschenberg

    I don't think of myself as making art. I do what I do because I want to, because painting is the best way I've found to get along with myself.

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    Robert Rauschenberg

    I don't think there's anything really wrong with influence because I think that one can use another man's art as material either literally or just implying that they're doing that, without it representing a lack of a point of view.

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    Robert Rauschenberg

    I feel as though the world is a friendly boy walking along in the sun.

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    Robert Rauschenberg

    I feel strong in my belief, based on my widely traveled collaborations, that a one-to-one contact through art contains potent peaceful powers, and is the most non-elitist way to share information, hopefully seducing us into creating mutual understandings for the benefit of all.

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    Robert Rauschenberg

    I'm not so facile that I can accomplish or find out what I want to know or explore enough of the possibilities and a way of making a painting, say, in just one painting or two paintings.

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    Robert Rauschenberg

    I never allowed myself the luxury of those brilliant, beautiful colors until I went to India and saw people walking around in them or dragging them in the mud. I realised they were not so artificial.

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    Robert Rauschenberg

    I really feel sorry for people who think things like soap dishes or mirrors or Coke bottles are ugly, because they're surrounded by things like that all day long, and it must make them miserable.

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    Robert Rauschenberg

    I refuse to be in this world by myself. I want an open commitment from the rest of the people.

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    Robert Rauschenberg

    I still have a struggle reading (dyslexia, fh) and so I don't read much.. ..Probably the only reason I'm painter is because I couldn't read yet I love to write, but when I write I know what I'm writing, but when I'm reading I can't see it, because it goes from all sides of the page at once. But that's very good for printmaking.

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    Robert Rauschenberg

    I think a painting is more like the real world if it's made out the real world.

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    Robert Rauschenberg

    I think that in the last twenty years or so, there's been a new kind of honesty in painting where painters have been very proud of paint and have let it behave openly.

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    Robert Rauschenberg

    It is impossible to have progress without conscience

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    Robert Rauschenberg

    It's so easy to be undisciplined. And to be disciplined is so against my character, my general nature anyway, that I have to strain a little bit to keep on the right track.

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    Robert Rauschenberg

    It's when you've found out how to do certain things, that it's time to stop doing them, because what's missing is that you're not including the risk.

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    Robert Rauschenberg

    I used to think of that line in Allen Ginsberg's 'Howl', about the 'sad cup of coffee'.. ..I have had cold coffee and hot coffee and lousy coffee, But I've never had a sad cup of coffee.

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    Robert Rauschenberg

    I usually work in a direction until I know how to do it, then I stop, At the time that I am bored or understand - I use those words interchangeably - another appetite has formed.

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    Robert Rauschenberg

    I want my paintings to look like what's going on outside my window rather than what's inside my studio.

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    Robert Rauschenberg

    I was much happier when I had less responsibility... when my only responsibility was to my work and to myself.

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    Robert Rauschenberg

    I wouldn't use the same color in a picture in more than one place

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    Robert Rauschenberg

    Most artists try to break your heart, or they accidentally break their own hearts.But I find the quietness in the ordinary much more satisfying.

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    Robert Rauschenberg

    My art is about paying attention - about the extremely dangerous possibility that you might be art.

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    Robert Rauschenberg

    My concern is never art, but always what art can be used for.

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    Robert Rauschenberg

    My fascination with images open 24 hrs. is based on the complex interlocking if disparate facts heated pool that have no respect for grammar. The form then Denver 39 is second hand to nothing. The work then has a chance to electric service become its own cliché. Luggage. This is the inevitable fate fair ground of any inanimate object freightways by this I mean anything that does not have inconsistency as a possibility built in.

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    Robert Rauschenberg

    One has to believe in what one is doing, one has to commit oneself inwardly, in order to do painting. Once obsessed, one ultimately carries it to the point of believing that one might change human beings through painting. But if one lacks this passionate commitment, there is nothing left to do. Then it is best to leave it alone.

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    Robert Rauschenberg

    Painting is always strongest when in spite of composition, color, etc., it appears as a fact, or an inevitability, as opposed to a souvenir or arrangement.