SFMOMA - Chances that Occur

The great work of art's significance rests more in what it demands of us than in what we say about it or judge it to be using criteria. In fact the great work of art demands from us thoughts and feelings and the formation of concepts and evaluative criteria which do not precede its presence; it questions the adequacy of what we think and say. A truly great work might call one's very way of life into question. The ideal is a transformation...in which we do not remain what we were... (From Stanley Deetz's Effectiveness and Ethics in Interpersonal Interaction)

Robert Rauschenberg

Rauschenberg died on May 12, 2008, two weeks before our trip to San Francisco, so this is a tribute to him.

In the 1950s, Rauschenberg was one of the few emerging artists in the New York avant-garde who, as he put it, respected the Abstract Expressionists enough not to copy them. Throughout his long career, he has challenged the limits of art-making. In the early 1950s, his inclination to experiment with painting, photography, printmaking, collage, found-object sculpture, and performance art was already apparent. From http://www.sfmoma.org/

Collection, 1954
painting - oil, paper, fabric, wood, and metal on canvas

Rauschenberg led the art work into a new direction. Doesn’t represent anything. No longer a window into something else. It is an object itself. New tools, features, color, scale, brush strokes, interaction of the shapes and colors, creation of emotion, change without the use of anything representational.

White Painting [Three Panel], 1951

painting - oil on canvas

Shadows absorbing and reflecting back what is happening in the room, the mood in the room. Allows greater permission, breaking boundaries. Telling a story or asking a question. Ambiguity. Art is ambiguous. Reintroduced pop culture. A bridge between pop art, Warhol, and abstract.

Triptych is a work of art (usually a panel painting) which is divided into three sections, or three carved panels which are hinged together and folded. It is therefore a type of polyptych, the term for all multi-panel works; the diptych has two panels. The middle panel is the larger one and is flanked by two smaller, but related, works. While the root of the word is the ancient Greek "triptychos", the word arose into the medieval period from the name for an Ancient Roman writing tablet, which had two hinged panels flanking a central one. The form can also be used for pendant jewelry.

The triptych form arises from early Christian art, and was the standard format for altar paintings from the Middle Ages onwards. Its geographical range was from the eastern Byzantine churches to the English Celtic churches in the west.

Janine Antoni

Lick and Lather, 1993-1994
sculpture - chocolate and soap

Uses her body as a tool to make her art to represent quality vs. individuality. Lick and lather. Soap – pure, clear. Chocolate – indulgence. Licking the chocolate defaces herself. Took a bath with the soap. Feeding and washing with herself. Gentle acts that are slowly erasing herself. Erasing the individuality that we have. How do we relate to our image? Are we only what we look like? Conflict of love and hate with our physical appearance. Performance art – making vs. sculpting.

Jim Hodges

No Betweens, 1996
sculpture - silk, cotton, polyester, and thread

Nothing is permanent. Representative of life in late 80s and 90s. Fading away of gay artists, AIDS. It is all connected like fine layers of silk thread. Fragility, beauty, pictorial vividness, intimacy.