"The only thing that I could get with chance, and I never was able to use it, was that I would end up with something quite geometric or the spirit that I was interested in, indulging in, was gone"
- Robert Rauschenberg
About this Quote
This quote by Robert Rauschenberg talks to the concept of possibility and its role in his imaginative process. He recommends that while he was able to get something from chance, it was never something he could use. He indicates that the spirit of his work was lost in the procedure of depending on chance. This suggests that Rauschenberg was more interested in the creative procedure of making art than the outcomes of possibility. He was searching for something more significant than what possibility could offer. He was trying to find something geometric, something that might be formed and molded by his own hand. In the end, he discovered that depending on opportunity was not enough to catch the spirit of his work. He needed to take control of the innovative process in order to produce something that genuinely talked to him.
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