A memorable morning with Robert Rauschenberg

By Mary Voelz Chandler, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Photo by Ann Johansson/AP

Robert Rauschenberg

In 1984 I left my job as an arts editor at the Miami Herald, but still freelanced for the paper.

The assignment that weekday morning: go to the Center for the Fine Arts and interview Robert Rauschenberg during the installation of his huge mixed-media work The 1st 400 Feet or More Than Half a Furlong of the 1 / 4 Mile or 2 Furlong Piece.

Nervous? I couldn't eat.

I am not one for hero worship, but Rauschenberg went beyond that. He changed the face of contemporary art in the 1950s, both through his "combines" and use of found objects and references to popular imagery. He worked in the fields of dance and music. He was part of a golden age in New York, where Jasper Johns and James Rosenquist, John Cage and Merce Cunningham made their mark on this nation's cultural identity. He was part of the strong link between Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism.

At that time Rauschenberg continued to experiment in his studios on Captiva Island a few hundred miles away from Miami, mixing mediums and reinventing as he went.

Deep breath. I walked in to the gallery and found a man who proved the maxim that the great ones, by and large, are pros who like to talk about their work.

Part of the giant piece was still on the ground; eventually it would ring the room. A handsome young assistant occasionally brought Rauschenberg a glass filled with a pale brown liquid (bourbon and branch, I think).

We talked about the work at hand, especially those who had modeled for Furlong, a mix of photographs, abstractions, totems and figures outlined against fields of bright color.

Rauschenberg began to list names. "That's Mom, there," he said, pointing to one form on the piece. This child of Bible Belt Texas had asked his mother to lie down on the long sheet of drawing material and painted around her. Every image in the massive piece evoked a memory for him, and he loved talking about it. It was one of the best mornings of my life.

The Center published a poster of Furlong, which I framed and have hauled to various homes. It's still propped with a bunch of other stuff, tucked behind a door in my kitchen.

On rare dustings, I look at it and the morning comes right back to me when I met an artist whose spirit and drive for the new burned bright.

Mary Voelz Chandler is the art and architecture critic. Chandlerm@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2677.