Robert Rauschenberg Passed Away

The news that Robert Rauschenberg died today, while not entirely unexpected, is deeply saddening. Robert Rauschenberg was 82 and the world is a little less bright today.

Robert Rauschenberg was IMHO the most important artist of the twentieth century, and he was still producing work in this century. While there is much to celebrate in Modern Art since Cézanne, with many extraordinary contributions from the European continent, including of course the outstanding work of Picasso, Chagall, Dali, Mattisse, van Gogt, and American contributions that took the late twentieth century by storm, one must mention de Kooning, Pollock, Warhol, and Rauschenberg's close friends Jasper Johns and John Cage; they are all illuminated by the bright light that was Robert Rauschenberg.

Why is Robert Rauschenberg so important to our culture and in what way did he transform modern art?

The real reason is not widely appreciated I admit. Sure you will hear curators talk about the great "stuff" he built, his "combines," and they will tell you about how he pulled things into his art from the world around him, but none of this was particularly original or revolutionary.

Robert Rauschenberg is important to Modern Art and our culture as a whole for one thing, and it is a major transformation in thinking about art; more revolutionary than Duchamp and Dada and more profound than the Surrealism of Dali.

He turned ideas into works of art.

It is a remarkable and stunning achievement. And when you look at his body of work it is that one great thought that astounds you. He turned not material things into art, but ideas. This is best illustrated in his "Erased de Kooning Drawing" that is in the permanent collection at SFMOMA. It is, in my view, simply the most revolutionary work of art of the twentieth century.

Rest in peace Robert, and thank you for transforming how I viewed the world.