Post 4. Free-Themed post. Talk about your favourite artist

For this post, you have to talk about your favourite artist, please keep in mind the following:

-What kind of art does he/she make?
-What is your favourite piece of art? ( In which ways does it influence your work?)
-Talk about his/her life

You have to write at least 200 words.

Don't forget to comment ( 3 classmates). To comment is to care ;)


Robert Rauschenberg

To begin with, I think this is a hard question since there are so many artists -local and international- that I find interesting. Even more, each day one gets to know newer art makers, or rediscover some old forgotten work from the past, It is a never ending quest. At this moment, the only artist I can think of is the late Robert Rauschenberg, an extraordinary american artist, who almost single-handedly redefined the definition of modern art.
When I was younger, I could not distinguish Rauschenberg's work from some of its contemporaries.  He was a bit too prolific, too hard to nail down (or classify). His works were at odds between modern painting and contemporary installation. Therefore, it was really hard for me  to identify most of his prolific work, ranging from bi-dimensional pieces up to three dimensional combines, a term that he used to identify his cut-and-paste approach to art making.

The first piece that  struck me  is titled Canyon (1959), which integrates flat elements with some found objects, projecting the flat surface of the picture into our physical space. I really liked how he could make a distinct comment about the language of representation, in a kind of apparently spontaneous and laid-back way.
Later,I learnt that Robert Rauschenberg was a student of Josef Albers, a fundamental artist and thinker from the Bauhaus school. His formative years were deeply influenced by the work of other Modern artists, that in their own ways, were redefining the means and language of the visual arts.
In his adult years, he was involved in a romantic and professional relation with Jasper Jones, which implied a further development of his vision and goals.

What I like the most of his life and work was his ambition of integrating and assembling different traditions and knowledge into what can be defined as mixed-media. Maybe for our current sensibilities, Rauschenberg was a bit self-indulgent and too artsy. Nevertheless, his work continues to provoke and invites us to expand our notions of what is the place of ordinary life in art and vice-versa.