Comments (1)

• Peter Samis says:

  May 16, 2008 at 9:02 am

  Heidi’s commentary is right on target. For me, it was a real honor and pleasure to meet Rauschenberg himself when he came here. His was an expansive, free-thinking, and joyous intelligence. He clearly was not constrained by any of the museum protocols that so many of us take as our badge of professionalism. I remember him giving the boot on his “Trophy for John Cage” a good whack so it would slam into the twisted sheet metal in front of it and make a surprising sound. All of us in the gallery knew he was the only one who could get away with that. (He was probably also the only one who knew the sculpture had also been conceived as an instrument!)

  BTW, the website that we developed around Rauschenberg’s early works–and the way they pushed the limits of what an object could be “and still have it mean something”–is at http://www.sfmoma.org/msoma/artworks/1020.html. When you launch the program, don’t forget the link at the lower left of the opening screen… the one that says “How did Rauschenberg redefine art?”