© Robert Rauschenberg / Adagp, Paris, 2006
Robert Rauschenberg (American, 1925-2008). Interview, 1955. Combine painting. 184.8 x 125 x 63.5 cm (72 3/4 x 49 1/4 x 25 in.). The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, The Panza Collection.
Interview combines oil paint, a found painting, a found drawing, lace, wood, an envelope, a found letter, fabric, photographs, printed reproductions, toweling, and newspaper on a wood structure with brick, string, fork, softball, nail, metal hinges, and a wood door.
"We have ideas about bricks. A brick just isn't a physical mass of a certain dimension that one builds houses, or chimneys with. The whole world of associations, all the information that we have -- the fact that it's made of dirt, that it's been through a kiln, romantic ideas about little brick cottages, or the chimney which is so romantic, or labor -- you have to deal with as many of the things as you know about. Because if you don't, I think you start working more like an eccentric, or primitive, which, you know, […] can be anyone, or the insane, which is very obsessive." - Robert Ruaschenberg in an interview with David Sylvester, BBC, June 1964.
"We have ideas about bricks. A brick just isn't a physical mass of a certain dimension that one builds houses, or chimneys with. The whole world of associations, all the information that we have -- the fact that it's made of dirt, that it's been through a kiln, romantic ideas about little brick cottages, or the chimney which is so romantic, or labor -- you have to deal with as many of the things as you know about. Because if you don't, I think you start working more like an eccentric, or primitive, which, you know, […] can be anyone, or the insane, which is very obsessive." - Robert Ruaschenberg in an interview with David Sylvester, BBC, June 1964.