Creativity Quote by Robert Rauschenberg

There is a whole scene hiding inside that mild complaint. The Cedar Tavern (often misremembered as the Cedar Bar) was the sweaty, myth-stuffed clubhouse of Abstract Expressionism in 1950s New York: hard-drinking talk, hard-won masculine swagger, and a critical consensus that treated painting like a blood sport. Rauschenberg’s line isn’t gossip; it’s a social map. He’s admitting, with disarming plainness, that the dominant language of the room wasn’t his.

The subtext is aesthetic as much as personal. The Cedar crowd prized heroic interiority and grand statements on canvas. Rauschenberg was moving toward a practice built on permeability: combines, found imagery, collaboration, the everyday. Trying to “talk” to those artists meant more than small talk; it meant negotiating a code of seriousness that policed what counted as art, and who counted as an artist. His understatement lets the gatekeeping show without giving it the satisfaction of a fight.

It also signals a temperament. Where the Cedar myth celebrates loud certainty, Rauschenberg’s voice is tentative, observational, almost politely baffled. That’s strategic. By framing alienation as conversational difficulty, he refuses melodrama and keeps the focus on the ecology of a scene that could be socially impenetrable even to fellow insiders. Coming from a queer artist navigating a macho milieu, the phrase carries a quiet edge: the problem isn’t just shyness; it’s mismatch. He’s describing the moment before the break, when you realize the future of art may require leaving the bar.