Robert Rauschenberg

What struck me about the reader's article is that people tell Rauschenberg to his face that his work is full of ugly objects. People offended by this work I assume are used to the regular(as everyone is I suppose) and are not open to every interpretation of everyday life. Rauschenberg's effort to avoid the familiar while still using every day objects is fascinating because it seems that in most aspects of life, creating new ways and avoiding the familiar is always the hardest task. The attitude of many is, if its not broken, why fix it?

I like the concept of forming a picture as opposed to portraying an idea. While I am a very conceptual artist, with my art and my dance, I really enjoy abstract art and the ability to create from a non-concrete idea. When someone creates something not from a conceptual standpoint, it allows the viewer to create and think on their own about the piece. 

I have been thinking about this a lot lately. When I was at Coachella, a kid in my group and I were discussing art standing beside an artist who was painting. The guy told me how his sister was an abstract artist, and that he never quite understood her art until he tried LSD and took a long look at an abstract piece. He said matter of factly that art is what you make of it and that abstraction is exactly what you are looking at. There is no deeper meaning, no message, it just is what it is. I believe thats the way it is with most art. You take it at face value and if necessary explore the ideas deeper. The truth is that many times we cannot discuss with the artist their intention for the piece, so we must form our own ideas to go with the visual so it can mean something to us.