"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’s meditation on chance and geometry reveals a tension between spontaneity and intention in the creative process. He reflects on his experiments with chance, leaving certain outcomes of his artistic process undetermined, perhaps through random procedures or the unexpected intervention of materials. Rauschenberg notes that when he allowed chance to govern his work, often what resulted was geometric or orderly. Rather than sparking excitement or adventure, the outcome felt predetermined, even sterile. The uncontrolled, mechanical nature of chance seemed to limit the improvisational vitality he sought.

He laments never being able to truly put chance to personal use, not because he couldn’t deploy it, but because it failed to conjure the “spirit” he was drawn to. Art was, for Rauschenberg, more than the arrangement of forms or the simple operation of processes. The “spirit” he desired involved energy, surprise, perhaps a reflection of life’s unpredictability, but on his own terms. For Rauschenberg, chance produced order, but at the cost of emotional engagement. Once work became predictably geometric, or its innovation was replaced by repetition, the spirit he valued disappeared. The process lost the qualities of exploration and curiosity, core to his conception of art.

The passage also gestures to paradox: we often think of chance as disruptive and liberating, yet for Rauschenberg, its application yielded only a circumscribed orderliness, a different kind of constraint. This dissatisfaction exposes the limits of method over intuition, showing how even processes that aim to abandon control can end up encoding another, subtler form of limitation. The striving to harness vitality, presence, or “spirit” through chance may only recircle the artist to another, less satisfying iteration of control. Rauschenberg’s insight is a testament to the delicate balance between openness and authorship, between letting go and holding fast to one’s artistic intent.