Rauschenberg’s “Gap” (2014)1
Rauschenberg’s “Gap” (2014)1
This chapter examines Robert Rauschenberg's attempt “to act” in “that gap” between art and life in his effort to avoid the incommensurability of what he called the “blinding fact” of both. In 1959, Rauschenberg declared: “Painting relates to both art and life. Neither can be made. (I try to act in that gap between the two.)” By 1977, Rauschenberg's “act in the gap” had become a maxim for experimental art. His appropriated imagery, combined with photography and painting, would soon also be recognized as the antecedent for visual aspects of postmodernism, especially neo-expressionist painting, in the 1980s. The chapter discusses Rauschenberg's notion of art and life as well as his views on ethics, along with his 1991 work of art Litercy (Phantom).
Keywords: art, Robert Rauschenberg, life, painting, experimental art, imagery, photography, ethics, Litercy (Phantom), gap
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