Hamburger Theory of Love

Hamburger Theory of Love by Beth Alice Cook

What more can I say than that which has already been articulated by this artist? Click to enlarge.

pool

if that don't work, try this

Who put the Oh in Combine?

Collection, 1954, Rauschenberg
oil, paper, fabric, newspaper, printed reproductions, wood, metal, and mirror on three canvas panels

When I go see art in an art-viewing context, like say in a museum or at a theatre, I try to have an open mind and a courteous span of attention. I try not to judge too soon as in this is soooo self-indulgent, what a wanker! I try not to be cynical as in my two-year old could have done that! And I try to engage with the art as the artist might have hoped his or her audience to do so. I know, I know, it's a best case scenario, but when it's been 103 for a week-in-a-row and the museums are—not only open late—but free on Thursdays, I seem to be able to give myself up quite readily. Seeing one piece of art by a particular artist is one thing, but a finely-tooled retrospective lends itself to a much more enriching—not to mention satisfying—experience.

Enter Robert Rauschenberg and the Museum of Contemporary Art. When you look at Rauschenberg's combines—what he called his paintings that combined collage, sculpture and the occasionally taxidermied chicken—you recognize the beginning, middle and end of a thought process. You see the imprint of the artist's hand in drips, wide house-painting brush strokes, and globs and globs of paint squeezed from tubes. And you are invited to make of it what you will: not quite told what to think, but not left to sit alone with the stringent arguments of the abstract expressionists who refused to admit that they were in fact communicating anything at all to their audience. It's not a bad place to find yourself on a Thursday night as the sun lazily sets, maybe at 8:30, maybe earlier, your body still retaining all the heat from a weeks worth of living—if you can call it that—in your non air-conditioned abode.

Rauschenberg, you see, was a prolific yet crafty devil. More than once, a combine was created during a live performance. During one such performance, and I can't remember if it was a musical or dance performance, Rauschenberg worked on a blank canvas facing away from the audience. Throughout the performance he painted, fastened and nailed furiously. At the end of the performance he simply walked off the stage without ever showing the audience the finished piece. Similarly, when interviewed on a Japanese television show, Rauschenberg's cagey response was to begin making a combine on a nearby Japanese screen. As the interviewer became increasingly frustrated, he asked the interpreter to write down the questions and hand them to Rauschenberg. Rauschenberg simply affixed the paper on to the screen.

One of the most startling details I saw, was of a rusty metal roller skate strapped into a brick. I don't know why, but the small, precious, cast-off roller skate—and I was an ardent child roller skater—juxtaposed with the utilitarian and somewhat violent connotation of the brick was an image that has stuck with me for days. And that's pretty much what the show is about. It's a small show of a very limited period in the artist's long-standing career. But within that you really see him push, pull, bend, hammer and work with the materials in a such a way that you begin to understand why that dialogue is so important to him: to come to the stuff—ordinary stuff that one could just as easily call junk—with newness, with as few preconceptions as possible, with the possibility of something strange and exciting being born from the combination of it all. And isn't that how we should all greet the day?