In Raushenberg's Words

Rauschenberg is, notably, one of the most insightful commentators on his own work. His most famous dictum about working in the "boundary between art and life" is just one the many amusing, insightful, quotable, and inspiring things which he has said about his own works or about art in general. 



"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."
-Robert Rauschenberg

"I think that art is more like the world if it is made out of the world" -R.R.

"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. A lot of people try to think up ideas. I'm not one. I'd rather accept the irresistible possibilities of what I can't ignore."

Oracle

"People ask me, 'Don't you ever run out of ideas?' Well, on the first place, I don't use ideas. Every time I have an idea, it's too limiting and usually turns out to be a disappointment. But I haven't run out of curiosity."

Canyon, 1959

"I always have a good reason for taking something out but I never have one for putting something in. And I don't want to, because that means that the picture is being painted predigested."

Soundings, 1968

"Art is educating, provocative, and enlightening even when not at first understood. The very creative confusion stimulates curiosity and growth, leading to trust and tolerance... It was not until I realized that it is the celebration of the differences between things that I became an artist who could see."

Tower, 1957

"Validity cannot exist without standards. How long are standards fresh?" To which he then added, "Two images: a starched stiff shirt unworn responding to the wind is a board; frozen meat that would rot in the sun."