0:00:05 > 0:00:10In 1944, a young man called Milton Ernest Rauschenberg
0:00:10 > 0:00:13embarked on a journey that would take him a million miles away
0:00:13 > 0:00:17from the sprawling oil refinery town where he'd been born
0:00:17 > 0:00:20to working-class parents in 1925.
0:00:23 > 0:00:24His escape from Port Arthur,
0:00:24 > 0:00:28a cultural desert on the steamy Gulf Coast of Texas,
0:00:28 > 0:00:30would eventually lead him to paradise.
0:00:33 > 0:00:36By the time Rauschenberg came here in 1970
0:00:36 > 0:00:40and settled on this beautiful and remote island of Captiva in Florida,
0:00:40 > 0:00:43he'd completely transformed his life.
0:00:43 > 0:00:45He'd even changed his own name.
0:00:46 > 0:00:48Robert Rauschenberg, as he now called himself,
0:00:48 > 0:00:51was by then a world-famous artist,
0:00:51 > 0:00:54with a retinue of assistants helping him create some of
0:00:54 > 0:00:59the most inventive and celebrated works of the 20th century.
0:01:03 > 0:01:07Today, Rauschenberg isn't really a household name like, say,
0:01:07 > 0:01:09Jackson Pollock or Andy Warhol,
0:01:09 > 0:01:12but he really should be because no-one else
0:01:12 > 0:01:15came close in working with such a bewildering array
0:01:15 > 0:01:16of different styles,
0:01:16 > 0:01:20constantly experimenting with new and surprising materials
0:01:20 > 0:01:24during the course of a career that spanned six decades.
0:01:28 > 0:01:30Bob always was looking for the new.
0:01:30 > 0:01:32As soon as he mastered one thing,
0:01:32 > 0:01:36he would look for something else that would inspire him.
0:01:36 > 0:01:39I'm not interested in doing what I know I can do
0:01:39 > 0:01:42or what I think I can do.
0:01:42 > 0:01:45Rauschenberg was a new type of artist,
0:01:45 > 0:01:49one who embraced popular culture in all its trashy glory,
0:01:49 > 0:01:53and expanded the possibilities of what an artwork could be,
0:01:53 > 0:01:55from paintings and sculptures,
0:01:55 > 0:01:59to paintings and sculptures combined.
0:01:59 > 0:02:03He was able to break all these rules and dissolve all of these boundaries
0:02:03 > 0:02:06because he wasn't afraid of the consequences.
0:02:06 > 0:02:08From silk-screens and blueprints
0:02:08 > 0:02:11to works on metal and glass.
0:02:11 > 0:02:18Bob is the wind blowing through the art world for almost a century now,
0:02:18 > 0:02:20pollinating everything.
0:02:20 > 0:02:24From set and costume design to collaborations with musicians,
0:02:24 > 0:02:27dancers and even scientists,
0:02:27 > 0:02:32Rauschenberg's endless curiosity saw him rewrite the artistic rule book
0:02:32 > 0:02:36and anticipate every major art movement from the '50s onwards.
0:02:42 > 0:02:46Rauschenberg once said that the whole world was his canvas.
0:02:46 > 0:02:50He was always a scavenger, collecting life's flotsam and jetsam
0:02:50 > 0:02:54to create his wildly raucously inventive works of art.
0:02:54 > 0:02:57And anything and everything could be a material for him -
0:02:57 > 0:02:59socks, old bedspreads,
0:02:59 > 0:03:01light bulbs, fans,
0:03:01 > 0:03:04mangled car parts, metal signs,
0:03:04 > 0:03:07even a common car tyre...
0:03:10 > 0:03:13..made of rubber, made of petroleum,
0:03:13 > 0:03:15made from crude oil.
0:03:19 > 0:03:23However far he travelled from his home town of Port Arthur,
0:03:23 > 0:03:26it was the product of those dirty Texan oil refineries
0:03:26 > 0:03:30that would fuel the best of his art and keep him grounded.
0:03:34 > 0:03:39He could make art from anything, you know, whether it's dirt or gold.
0:03:39 > 0:03:41There was no such thing as low or high,
0:03:41 > 0:03:44there was no hierarchy of art
0:03:44 > 0:03:47or material or people.
0:03:49 > 0:03:52By talking to those who knew Rauschenberg best,
0:03:52 > 0:03:54I'm hoping to find out what drove this man
0:03:54 > 0:03:57in his restless quest for reinvention,
0:03:57 > 0:04:00which saw him come from small-town America
0:04:00 > 0:04:04to become one of the first truly global artists.
0:04:19 > 0:04:21Now, there is one person
0:04:21 > 0:04:24who I've been really, really desperate to talk to,
0:04:24 > 0:04:27and that's Rauschenberg's younger sister, Janet,
0:04:27 > 0:04:28his only sibling.
0:04:28 > 0:04:31Now, the only trouble is that she lives in Louisiana
0:04:31 > 0:04:33and unfortunately she hasn't been able to fly out to meet me.
0:04:33 > 0:04:35However - and I'm hoping that Rauschenberg
0:04:35 > 0:04:37would've approved of this -
0:04:37 > 0:04:40my solution to the problem is to try and harness
0:04:40 > 0:04:4421st-century technology to talk to her via a video call.
0:04:44 > 0:04:47So that's what I'm going to attempt to do now.
0:04:47 > 0:04:48There we go.
0:04:49 > 0:04:52- Janet!- Hey.
0:04:53 > 0:04:56There's so much that I want to ask you, Janet,
0:04:56 > 0:04:59but the thing that I've been really trying to find out about is
0:04:59 > 0:05:01a little bit about Port Arthur
0:05:01 > 0:05:05and what life was like in Texas.
0:05:05 > 0:05:09Port Arthur is a blue-collar city, for sure.
0:05:09 > 0:05:12Not that there's anything wrong with blue-collar,
0:05:12 > 0:05:14except that there was no art stuff going on.
0:05:14 > 0:05:18Let me ask you about that because I wonder how easy was it
0:05:18 > 0:05:21for a young man who wants to be an artist
0:05:21 > 0:05:24to pursue his dreams in a place like that?
0:05:24 > 0:05:25It was impossible.
0:05:25 > 0:05:30And, of course, my daddy did not understand art at all, not ever.
0:05:30 > 0:05:32People did that for a hobby.
0:05:32 > 0:05:35He had no encouragement ever.
0:05:35 > 0:05:38But Mother was always totally behind Bob.
0:05:38 > 0:05:41She was a delightful little lady -
0:05:41 > 0:05:45pretty and silly and just a lot of fun.
0:05:45 > 0:05:48And, you know, Bob was silly.
0:05:48 > 0:05:50I mean, he was silly-silly. We used to have the best time,
0:05:50 > 0:05:52cos I'm silly.
0:05:52 > 0:05:55If you couldn't have a good time then you couldn't go with him.
0:05:55 > 0:05:59You had to just go by yourself, go do something else.
0:05:59 > 0:06:03But I do think that Mother had a tremendous influence on Bob.
0:06:10 > 0:06:14For all he'd learnt from his mother about making light of life,
0:06:14 > 0:06:18Rauschenberg was determined from the very start to forge a career in art.
0:06:20 > 0:06:24After a stint in the Navy, he used his GI Bill to get himself
0:06:24 > 0:06:27to art school in Paris in 1948.
0:06:30 > 0:06:33But by the early '50s, there was only one place to head to
0:06:33 > 0:06:37if you wanted to be taken seriously as an artist -
0:06:37 > 0:06:38New York,
0:06:38 > 0:06:41which, by then, had taken over from Paris
0:06:41 > 0:06:43as the centre of the world's avant-garde.
0:06:45 > 0:06:49And the fact that he eventually managed to gain a foothold there
0:06:49 > 0:06:53and make a name for himself was largely down to this woman.
0:06:53 > 0:06:55- Susan.- Hi, Alastair.- Hello.
0:06:55 > 0:06:56- Come in.- It's great to meet you.
0:06:56 > 0:06:58- Thank you very much.- You too.
0:06:58 > 0:06:59- I'm in the right place.- You are.
0:06:59 > 0:07:01So this is your studio, right?
0:07:01 > 0:07:03This is my studio.
0:07:03 > 0:07:06VOICEOVER: Susan Weil, who, at the age of 86,
0:07:06 > 0:07:08continues to paint in her New York studio,
0:07:08 > 0:07:10met Rauschenberg in the late '40s.
0:07:12 > 0:07:15And it was she who led him to a place that would stimulate
0:07:15 > 0:07:18the unique way he went about making art.
0:07:20 > 0:07:22- Hi, Alastair.- Hello.
0:07:22 > 0:07:26This is nice and natural now, isn't it?
0:07:26 > 0:07:27Let's start at the very beginning.
0:07:27 > 0:07:29I mean, how did you meet Rauschenberg?
0:07:29 > 0:07:32Well, when I graduated from high school,
0:07:32 > 0:07:36I was young, 18, very juvenile,
0:07:36 > 0:07:40and I was enrolled in the Academie Julian in Paris
0:07:40 > 0:07:43and in the pension where I was living,
0:07:43 > 0:07:47there was a very huge laugh that boomed out now and then,
0:07:47 > 0:07:49and it was Bob.
0:07:49 > 0:07:52He had the biggest booming laugh you could imagine.
0:07:52 > 0:07:56Do you remember what you found so attractive about Bob to begin with?
0:07:56 > 0:08:01Well, he was so easy and friendly and wonderful
0:08:01 > 0:08:06and I loved his enthusiasm about art and his wonder at it
0:08:06 > 0:08:10because he grew up with people who were horrified about art
0:08:10 > 0:08:14and we kind of explored about art together in Paris.
0:08:19 > 0:08:23In late 1948, when Susan returned to America to continue her studies
0:08:23 > 0:08:27at Black Mountain College, Rauschenberg followed her.
0:08:31 > 0:08:34Nestling in the remote hills of North Carolina,
0:08:34 > 0:08:38Black Mountain was a haven for progressive minds,
0:08:38 > 0:08:41offering interdisciplinary classes to those who wished to experiment
0:08:41 > 0:08:44and expand the boundaries of art.
0:08:47 > 0:08:49It had that feeling at Black Mountain
0:08:49 > 0:08:51that you could do anything you wanted to do -
0:08:51 > 0:08:55you just tried to do it in your own way.
0:08:55 > 0:08:57So I'm so glad he found Black Mountain
0:08:57 > 0:09:01because Bob grew up so fast about art, he really did.
0:09:04 > 0:09:06I think that was the first place he had ever been where
0:09:06 > 0:09:12his nonconformism was echoed in almost everybody else.
0:09:13 > 0:09:16He was in a nest of nonconformers,
0:09:16 > 0:09:18and I think he loved the place,
0:09:18 > 0:09:22he absolutely felt supremely happy there.
0:09:23 > 0:09:26But while Rauschenberg took to Black Mountain immediately,
0:09:26 > 0:09:29his stern art teacher, Josef Albers,
0:09:29 > 0:09:31a former member of the Bauhaus,
0:09:31 > 0:09:33didn't think much of his new student.
0:09:36 > 0:09:39Bob always said that Albers was the most important teacher
0:09:39 > 0:09:42he ever had and he was sure that Albers felt
0:09:42 > 0:09:45he was the worst student that he'd ever had.
0:09:46 > 0:09:48He started every class with saying,
0:09:48 > 0:09:51"I don't want to know who did that."
0:09:51 > 0:09:53And everybody would turn and look at me.
0:09:56 > 0:10:01Josef Albers recognised ego when he saw it.
0:10:01 > 0:10:04And he didn't think we had any right to an ego,
0:10:04 > 0:10:09as we were young students, and so he had to wrestle with Bob
0:10:09 > 0:10:13in the best way he could, which was to put down his work and so on.
0:10:13 > 0:10:16But he was also a very powerful teacher.
0:10:17 > 0:10:19Albers was incredibly expansive in what he thought
0:10:19 > 0:10:24could be included in a work of art, so his students at Black Mountain
0:10:24 > 0:10:26would run out and gather natural materials,
0:10:26 > 0:10:29they would gather cigarette butts, they would gather trash from
0:10:29 > 0:10:34the dump heap and all of these things would become a work of art.
0:10:34 > 0:10:38In fact, in Albers' classes, the word "combination" was a mantra,
0:10:38 > 0:10:42so it was a kind of tutoring in collage procedures.
0:10:44 > 0:10:49Along with Albers, Rauschenberg met two men at Black Mountain,
0:10:49 > 0:10:52choreographer Merce Cunningham and composer John Cage,
0:10:52 > 0:10:55who'd become instrumental in helping him forge
0:10:55 > 0:10:57a collaborative approach to art.
0:10:58 > 0:11:04With the help of Cage and his Model A Ford, his wheels were inked black
0:11:04 > 0:11:08before being driven over 20 sheets of paper laid on the road.
0:11:11 > 0:11:14Rauschenberg created a piece of conceptual art
0:11:14 > 0:11:16that marked him out as a pioneer.
0:11:17 > 0:11:20And together, the three friends would go on to produce
0:11:20 > 0:11:24some of the most ground-breaking performances of the '50s and '60s.
0:11:24 > 0:11:28With Rauschenberg providing the sets and costumes,
0:11:28 > 0:11:29Cage the music...
0:11:30 > 0:11:32..and Cunningham the choreography.
0:11:35 > 0:11:38But it was an earlier collaboration with Susan,
0:11:38 > 0:11:41who Rauschenberg had married in the summer of 1950,
0:11:41 > 0:11:44that first got him press attention.
0:11:45 > 0:11:49This is Life magazine with an article about our blueprints.
0:11:49 > 0:11:52- So this is the collaboration that you did together?- Yes.
0:11:52 > 0:11:54And it got featured in Life?
0:11:54 > 0:11:56I mean, that's quite a big deal to begin with.
0:11:56 > 0:11:58I know, we were still students.
0:11:58 > 0:12:01I mean, it was crazy to get that attention.
0:12:01 > 0:12:03Well, maybe you could just describe how it worked.
0:12:03 > 0:12:08So, this is one of the big blueprints and the thing,
0:12:08 > 0:12:12whether it's a person or a flower, is covering the sensitive paper
0:12:12 > 0:12:18and when she gets up, you put it under the shower and it turns blue.
0:12:18 > 0:12:22- And what about these photographs. This is you - and him!- Yeah.
0:12:22 > 0:12:24- And this is your bathroom, basically?- Yeah.
0:12:24 > 0:12:29And we had to share the bath and share the kitchen. It wasn't easy.
0:12:29 > 0:12:33So when we did blueprints, our neighbour was fuming around,
0:12:33 > 0:12:35because he couldn't go to the bathroom.
0:12:37 > 0:12:41And, of course, 60-odd plus years on, these are major masterpieces.
0:12:41 > 0:12:43Do you feel proud?
0:12:43 > 0:12:49Well, I mean, what I feel is the wonder of finding a new way to work.
0:12:49 > 0:12:51It was exciting, you know?
0:12:51 > 0:12:55And when you were making them, you were just so anxious
0:12:55 > 0:12:58to see how they came out. It was just very exciting.
0:13:11 > 0:13:14The editors of Life magazine weren't the only ones
0:13:14 > 0:13:17to spot the originality of these works.
0:13:19 > 0:13:22One was bought by the Museum of Modern Art
0:13:22 > 0:13:27and included in their Abstraction In Photography exhibition in 1951,
0:13:27 > 0:13:30providing both the money and recognition
0:13:30 > 0:13:32the young Rauschenberg craved.
0:13:35 > 0:13:38But just as his career seemed to be taking off,
0:13:38 > 0:13:40his relationship with Susan,
0:13:40 > 0:13:42who'd by then given birth to their son, Christopher,
0:13:42 > 0:13:44was coming to an end.
0:13:45 > 0:13:47After Christopher was born,
0:13:47 > 0:13:51Bob went back to Black Mountain to do some teaching and so on,
0:13:51 > 0:13:55and I went there that summer with Chris, he was a new-born baby,
0:13:55 > 0:14:01and then I left Black Mountain and I was on my own after that.
0:14:04 > 0:14:08While teaching at Black Mountain, Rauschenberg had fallen in love
0:14:08 > 0:14:11with a young painter called Cy Twombly.
0:14:12 > 0:14:16Bob and Cy were gorgeous-looking.
0:14:16 > 0:14:20They were just drop-dead beautiful, both of them.
0:14:20 > 0:14:22Was Black Mountain the kind of place
0:14:22 > 0:14:25where, if you were two young, gay men in a relationship,
0:14:25 > 0:14:26you could be fairly open about it?
0:14:26 > 0:14:30Well, you know, homosexuality during the '50s
0:14:30 > 0:14:33was different than it is now.
0:14:34 > 0:14:36It was so hidden.
0:14:36 > 0:14:40And I think it was hidden by homosexuals to themselves.
0:14:40 > 0:14:44Bob evidently didn't realise the degree
0:14:44 > 0:14:47to which he was a homosexual until then.
0:14:50 > 0:14:54Were you aware, when you got married,
0:14:54 > 0:14:59of Rauschenberg's openness in terms of sexuality?
0:14:59 > 0:15:03I didn't really understand it, because I was a dopey teenager.
0:15:03 > 0:15:09The most he ever said about it was, "I find men attractive."
0:15:09 > 0:15:14So the marriage fell apart, but forever, we were very dear friends.
0:15:14 > 0:15:18We cared about each other a great deal and he adored Christopher,
0:15:18 > 0:15:21so that was all very positive.
0:15:28 > 0:15:32By the mid '50s, Rauschenberg's relationship with Twombly had ended
0:15:32 > 0:15:36and he returned to New York, intent on making a name for himself.
0:15:41 > 0:15:44But he wouldn't find it easy to fit in.
0:15:44 > 0:15:47The contemporary art scene was then dominated
0:15:47 > 0:15:49by the Abstract Expressionists.
0:15:50 > 0:15:53And compared to their non-figurative paintings,
0:15:53 > 0:15:57full of brooding introspection, Rauschenberg's exuberant works,
0:15:57 > 0:15:59brimming with references to real life,
0:15:59 > 0:16:01seemed totally left-field.
0:16:08 > 0:16:12In a pioneering film by Emile de Antonio, Rauschenberg
0:16:12 > 0:16:17explained his approach to art that marked him out as a renegade.
0:16:17 > 0:16:21You have to have time to feel sorry for yourself,
0:16:21 > 0:16:24if you're going to be a good Abstract Expressionist.
0:16:26 > 0:16:28And, er...
0:16:30 > 0:16:33..I think I always considered that a waste.
0:16:34 > 0:16:37It wasn't that he rejected them,
0:16:37 > 0:16:39he didn't reject what they were doing,
0:16:39 > 0:16:42he just wanted to open it up.
0:16:42 > 0:16:45And most of them were very contemptuous of him,
0:16:45 > 0:16:47because they felt he wasn't serious.
0:16:47 > 0:16:52They felt he was doing things that were just silly, childish antics.
0:16:55 > 0:16:59No wonder, perhaps, when he was creating works like this.
0:16:59 > 0:17:02In his Erased de Kooning Drawing, made -
0:17:02 > 0:17:04or rather unmade - in '53...
0:17:05 > 0:17:08..Rauschenberg acquired a drawing from the high priest
0:17:08 > 0:17:11of Abstract Expressionism, Willem de Kooning,
0:17:11 > 0:17:13and then proceeded to rub it out.
0:17:15 > 0:17:19But de Kooning, captured here on film by Robert Snyder,
0:17:19 > 0:17:22didn't make it easy for him.
0:17:22 > 0:17:23He said, "I'm going to give you
0:17:23 > 0:17:26"something really difficult to erase."
0:17:26 > 0:17:28HE LAUGHS
0:17:29 > 0:17:36And he gave me something that had charcoal, oil paint, pencil,
0:17:36 > 0:17:42crayon and I spent a month erasing that little drawing that's this big.
0:17:46 > 0:17:50I think that that's one of the greatest conceptual documents
0:17:50 > 0:17:52in the history of art.
0:17:52 > 0:17:55It was the first time that somebody created
0:17:55 > 0:17:58a work of art by subtraction.
0:17:59 > 0:18:02That's an amazing thing to have done.
0:18:06 > 0:18:09In his rebellion against the old guard,
0:18:09 > 0:18:14Rauschenberg soon found a willing accomplice, Jasper Johns,
0:18:14 > 0:18:17another young hopeful hailing from the South
0:18:17 > 0:18:20who'd become the most important person in his life.
0:18:21 > 0:18:26I think at the beginning it was primarily love at first sight.
0:18:26 > 0:18:31There was a poetic quality to Johns that was very appealing to him.
0:18:31 > 0:18:34It's amazing to me that they ever had a relationship,
0:18:34 > 0:18:36because Bob is so opposite to Jasper.
0:18:36 > 0:18:42Bob is so flamboyant and Jasper is more contained.
0:18:45 > 0:18:49Despite their different temperaments, Rauschenberg and Johns
0:18:49 > 0:18:53united in rejecting Abstract Expressionist angst.
0:18:53 > 0:18:58Their playful works, which instead celebrated popular culture,
0:18:58 > 0:19:00paved the way for pop art
0:19:00 > 0:19:03and eventually turned them into top-selling artists.
0:19:04 > 0:19:07But when Rauschenberg and Johns got together in the mid '50s,
0:19:07 > 0:19:10they were still penniless and hungry.
0:19:10 > 0:19:13Rauschenberg was surviving on this minuscule food budget
0:19:13 > 0:19:15of just 15 cents a day.
0:19:15 > 0:19:17He said that he couldn't even afford the ticket
0:19:17 > 0:19:18of a ride on the subway.
0:19:18 > 0:19:21And they were living together in this condemned building
0:19:21 > 0:19:24in downtown Manhattan without even hot water.
0:19:24 > 0:19:30So Rauschenberg began to scour the streets for discarded junk
0:19:30 > 0:19:33that he felt certain could be the raw - and crucially, free -
0:19:33 > 0:19:35materials for his art.
0:19:40 > 0:19:43During the '50s, some American artists realised what the Dadaists
0:19:43 > 0:19:46in Europe had known about 30 years before.
0:19:48 > 0:19:52Mainly that societies reveal themselves in what they threw away.
0:19:53 > 0:19:54Street junk was, to these men,
0:19:54 > 0:19:57what the flea market had been to the Surrealists.
0:19:57 > 0:20:00And among them, there was one budding master,
0:20:00 > 0:20:04a man in his 20s from Texas, named Robert Rauschenberg.
0:20:07 > 0:20:10I actually had kind of a house rule.
0:20:10 > 0:20:12If I walked completely around the block
0:20:12 > 0:20:15and I didn't find enough to work with,
0:20:15 > 0:20:19I could pick one other block in any direction
0:20:19 > 0:20:22to walk around, but that was it.
0:20:25 > 0:20:29He once described it, he said, "I have a peculiar kind of focus.
0:20:29 > 0:20:31"I tend to see everything in sight."
0:20:32 > 0:20:36He could look at the world around him uncritically.
0:20:36 > 0:20:40He could see that, as subject matter, a torn comic strip
0:20:40 > 0:20:45lying on the street could be as usable as a Renaissance painting.
0:20:46 > 0:20:50All of these things could be a source of imagery.
0:20:54 > 0:20:56Rauschenberg came up with a new term
0:20:56 > 0:21:00for these pioneering strange hybrid works of art
0:21:00 > 0:21:04he started creating in the '50s out of things he'd scavenged.
0:21:04 > 0:21:07And that term was "the combines".
0:21:07 > 0:21:11And that's because they're part painting, part sculpture
0:21:11 > 0:21:14and this is one of the very first combines of all.
0:21:14 > 0:21:18It's called Bed and there's a brilliant story attached to it
0:21:18 > 0:21:20about its creation.
0:21:20 > 0:21:24Here he is, spring 1955 - a destitute, penniless artist
0:21:24 > 0:21:28and he runs out of canvas, yet he still feels compelled to paint.
0:21:28 > 0:21:30So what does he do?
0:21:30 > 0:21:34He looks around him and he finds this old quilt and thinks,
0:21:34 > 0:21:37"Aha, I can use that. I can paint on it."
0:21:37 > 0:21:39But the thing he kept coming up against
0:21:39 > 0:21:42was that it always looked like a quilt.
0:21:42 > 0:21:46So his light bulb moment, if you like, was to say,
0:21:46 > 0:21:49"Well, why don't I just create a painting of a bed?"
0:21:49 > 0:21:53So he added the pillow, he added the sheet.
0:21:53 > 0:21:55And he was very happy with the results,
0:21:55 > 0:21:59but when it was first exhibited in the late '50s,
0:21:59 > 0:22:02people were utterly shocked.
0:22:02 > 0:22:05Some of the reviews thought it looked violent, disgusting.
0:22:05 > 0:22:09One critic compared it to a police photo of a murder scene.
0:22:09 > 0:22:12But that's not how Rauschenberg saw this work at all.
0:22:12 > 0:22:16He later said that this is one of the friendliest works of art
0:22:16 > 0:22:18that he ever created.
0:22:18 > 0:22:22He said his biggest fear was that people might actually crawl in
0:22:22 > 0:22:25and want to have a little sleep. And I think that's key.
0:22:25 > 0:22:28It tells us exactly what Rauschenberg was all about
0:22:28 > 0:22:30as an artist.
0:22:30 > 0:22:33He was about inclusiveness, welcoming in the world.
0:22:33 > 0:22:38Welcoming in reality to bridge that gap between art and life
0:22:38 > 0:22:41and make this something that we, ordinary people,
0:22:41 > 0:22:44can understand and relate to.
0:22:44 > 0:22:49It's part of our world, rather than some elite zone of high art.
0:22:51 > 0:22:54At a very young age, he was clear in what he didn't want to be,
0:22:54 > 0:22:57which was a, you know, wishy-washy,
0:22:57 > 0:23:00second-generation Abstract Expressionist painter.
0:23:00 > 0:23:03He just dispensed with this whole idea
0:23:03 > 0:23:09that paint served as a marker for someone's psychic state.
0:23:09 > 0:23:12I mean, he always insisted that things were just things
0:23:12 > 0:23:17and that was a key distinction between him and an older generation.
0:23:17 > 0:23:19I'll tell you something that I find slightly puzzling
0:23:19 > 0:23:20about the '50s work.
0:23:20 > 0:23:23You know, you've characterised the way Rauschenberg
0:23:23 > 0:23:26went about trying to dismantle Abstract Expressionism.
0:23:26 > 0:23:30At the same time, these combines are intensely personal,
0:23:30 > 0:23:33autobiographical works. Here's his son.
0:23:33 > 0:23:36There's the reading of the homoerotic content
0:23:36 > 0:23:38of one of the most famous combines, Monogram.
0:23:38 > 0:23:41You know, there's that famous Robert Hughes line that
0:23:41 > 0:23:43this is almost one of the most witty and compelling images
0:23:43 > 0:23:46of homosexual love, of the goat penetrating the tyre.
0:23:46 > 0:23:49Oh, I guess I haven't thought about that, I'm sorry, Alistair!
0:23:49 > 0:23:53- SHE LAUGHS Really?- Yes.- Amazing!
0:23:53 > 0:23:56- Do you think it's got some credibility?- I'm sure it does.
0:23:56 > 0:23:59I mean, Rauschenberg is an artist creating works of art
0:23:59 > 0:24:02and his interests and the things in his life come in,
0:24:02 > 0:24:05and therefore sexuality is part of it.
0:24:05 > 0:24:10He is a young, gay man in a pre-Stonewall world
0:24:10 > 0:24:13and he's signalling his relationships
0:24:13 > 0:24:16in various ways through his work.
0:24:17 > 0:24:21By the early '60s, Rauschenberg's combines had earnt him a reputation
0:24:21 > 0:24:24as the bad boy of the New York art world.
0:24:26 > 0:24:30But, by then, his relationship with Jasper Johns was over.
0:24:35 > 0:24:39It ended because of a very trite lovers' quarrel.
0:24:40 > 0:24:44To be specific, one day, Jasper came back and found Bob
0:24:44 > 0:24:49in a compromising position with a dancer from the Cunningham Company.
0:24:49 > 0:24:54I think it was very painful for them and for their close friends
0:24:54 > 0:24:57for quite a long time afterwards. Because it had been
0:24:57 > 0:25:00an extraordinarily electrifying relationship.
0:25:04 > 0:25:07Some consolation for the mess in his personal life
0:25:07 > 0:25:11came in the form of the most prestigious professional recognition
0:25:11 > 0:25:13that any artist could hope for.
0:25:15 > 0:25:20In 1964, Rauschenberg became the first American to win
0:25:20 > 0:25:24the grand prize for painting at the Venice Biennale.
0:25:24 > 0:25:28And in that same year, he was given his first British retrospective
0:25:28 > 0:25:30at London's Whitechapel Gallery.
0:25:30 > 0:25:34An event important enough to be covered by the BBC.
0:25:34 > 0:25:38- Brian.- Yes?- Did you check the bulbs?
0:25:38 > 0:25:41Well, the bulbs are all right and I know it'll work at the moment.
0:25:44 > 0:25:48The fantastically inventive scope of his work
0:25:48 > 0:25:51was quickly picked up by the British press.
0:25:54 > 0:25:58This is a piece from the Observer and it's headlined,
0:25:58 > 0:26:00"Rauschenberg: new pace-setter in art."
0:26:01 > 0:26:04Here's another piece, "Not Just A Joker."
0:26:04 > 0:26:08"An artist who solemnly presents us with a stuffed and grubby chicken
0:26:08 > 0:26:12"perched on a box is a sitting target for mockery."
0:26:12 > 0:26:15"Yet," he says, "I'd warn against dismissing him
0:26:15 > 0:26:16"as a pretentious joker.
0:26:16 > 0:26:21"In my view, this 38-year-old Texan is the most important artist
0:26:21 > 0:26:26"America has produced since Jackson Pollock in the 1940s."
0:26:27 > 0:26:31Rauschenberg has lived and worked in New York since 1951
0:26:31 > 0:26:35and even now he's painting more, he still likes mixed techniques.
0:26:35 > 0:26:38On Barge, he's used silkscreen quite a lot,
0:26:38 > 0:26:41his latest idea, a printed transfer process which imposes
0:26:41 > 0:26:44a real photographic image on the canvas,
0:26:44 > 0:26:48but has an unreal printed texture to offset the oil paint around it.
0:26:49 > 0:26:52It was for his early silkscreen paintings,
0:26:52 > 0:26:56started around the same time that Andy Warhol seized on the technique,
0:26:56 > 0:27:00that Rauschenberg had won the prize in Venice.
0:27:00 > 0:27:03But rather than cash in on his success,
0:27:03 > 0:27:06he did something most people would find incomprehensible.
0:27:09 > 0:27:12His response to winning was to make a call to home
0:27:12 > 0:27:17to tell a friend to destroy all of his silk screens.
0:27:17 > 0:27:20So he was determined that once he was celebrated
0:27:20 > 0:27:23with a certain kind of work, that he wasn't going to repeat it any more
0:27:23 > 0:27:27and he pushed himself to reinvent himself wholly again.
0:27:33 > 0:27:35Perhaps not surprising, then,
0:27:35 > 0:27:38that just does Rauschenberg was attracting international praise
0:27:38 > 0:27:43as a painter, he decided to head off in a completely different direction.
0:27:47 > 0:27:49There's a biographical fact about Rauschenberg
0:27:49 > 0:27:51that I find particularly fascinating,
0:27:51 > 0:27:54and that is he was a superb dancer,
0:27:54 > 0:27:56despite the fact that, growing up as a boy,
0:27:56 > 0:27:58his parents were fundamentalist Christians.
0:27:58 > 0:28:02They'd been part of a very austere sect that banned drinking
0:28:02 > 0:28:04and gambling and dancing as well.
0:28:04 > 0:28:07But, in the '50s, he started collaborating regularly
0:28:07 > 0:28:10with Merce Cunningham, who had an experimental dance company.
0:28:10 > 0:28:15But it wasn't until the '60s that his passion for dancing,
0:28:15 > 0:28:17for performing, really took flight.
0:28:19 > 0:28:24MUSIC: Boogie Nights by Heatwave
0:28:24 > 0:28:26He's always worked at lots of different things,
0:28:26 > 0:28:30likes to get away from painting for periods, mostly into the theatre.
0:28:32 > 0:28:35In Pelican, his own roller-skate ballet,
0:28:35 > 0:28:37Rauschenberg reassured the other dancers
0:28:37 > 0:28:40by trying out the movements himself.
0:28:40 > 0:28:42Even the music is his own sound combine.
0:28:45 > 0:28:49Some of the performances he did were stunning.
0:28:49 > 0:28:50The dance on roller skates -
0:28:50 > 0:28:53every time, it just had you, your heart was in your throat.
0:28:53 > 0:28:56You were scared that something bad was going to happen,
0:28:56 > 0:28:59because it looked so dangerous - and it was.
0:28:59 > 0:29:00Um... Oh, my God!
0:29:02 > 0:29:05He would move around this roller-skating rink
0:29:05 > 0:29:07and pick up a ballerina and the contrast
0:29:07 > 0:29:12between her delicacy and grace and these two guys on roller skates
0:29:12 > 0:29:16with their parachute wings galumphing around,
0:29:16 > 0:29:18it was hilarious.
0:29:22 > 0:29:27It was always a lot of fun to be in Bob's pieces.
0:29:27 > 0:29:30They were playful, imagistic...
0:29:30 > 0:29:32What was he doing in terms of designing costumes
0:29:32 > 0:29:34and designing sets?
0:29:34 > 0:29:41In one piece of his, I had a harness that had a screen over my head.
0:29:41 > 0:29:44Preposterous! You know, in terms of a costume.
0:29:44 > 0:29:47Bob was shooting images of the Empire State Building
0:29:47 > 0:29:51onto the screen and I was holding a watermelon
0:29:51 > 0:29:53covered with a small cloth
0:29:53 > 0:29:58and I pulled the cloth back and it exposed the head of the watermelon
0:29:58 > 0:30:01to the audience and then drop it over again,
0:30:01 > 0:30:04so it had a kind of pornographic quality to it.
0:30:04 > 0:30:07Sounds utterly outrageous!
0:30:07 > 0:30:12It seems very natural to me, when I think about the way he saw.
0:30:12 > 0:30:15Everything would be included as part of his art-making.
0:30:16 > 0:30:19You know, from Bob, everything was acceptable, always.
0:30:19 > 0:30:22It never felt too radical,
0:30:22 > 0:30:25because it was him and he just kept opening doors.
0:30:29 > 0:30:33- Wow, Julie. It's so big. - I know, it's amazing, isn't it?
0:30:33 > 0:30:36- I mean, you could really imagine this...- 150 feet.
0:30:36 > 0:30:42In 1966, the 69th Regiment Armoury in New York became the venue
0:30:42 > 0:30:45for one of Rauschenberg's most ambitious ventures.
0:30:46 > 0:30:51A multimedia event held over the course of nine evenings
0:30:51 > 0:30:52that would blow the minds
0:30:52 > 0:30:56of the 10,000 curious visitors assembled there.
0:30:56 > 0:31:00PSYCHEDELIC ROCK MUSIC PLAYS
0:31:00 > 0:31:05In January 1966, ten artists from New York
0:31:05 > 0:31:09and 30 engineers from Bell Telephone Laboratories
0:31:09 > 0:31:12began a collaboration that resulted
0:31:12 > 0:31:16in a series of dance, music and theatre works.
0:31:20 > 0:31:24The events began with a piece choreographed by Rauschenberg
0:31:24 > 0:31:25called Open Score.
0:31:27 > 0:31:30It started with a tennis game.
0:31:30 > 0:31:35Frank Stella and his tennis partner came out and she measured the net,
0:31:35 > 0:31:39totally serious, and then they started playing.
0:31:39 > 0:31:41RINGING CHIME
0:31:41 > 0:31:44The racquets were fixed in such a way
0:31:44 > 0:31:48that in the handle of the racquet was an FM transmitter,
0:31:48 > 0:31:51so every time the racquet hit a ball,
0:31:51 > 0:31:55the sound was transmitted to an FM radio and then to the sound system,
0:31:55 > 0:32:00so every time the ball was hit, you heard this very loud bong.
0:32:00 > 0:32:03One of the things about the armoury which we discovered very quickly
0:32:03 > 0:32:05was that there was a five-second echo.
0:32:05 > 0:32:07SHE CLAPS
0:32:07 > 0:32:08CLAP ECHOES
0:32:08 > 0:32:12It's very... It is acoustic mayhem, isn't it?
0:32:12 > 0:32:15We knew about how this sound was going to reverberate.
0:32:15 > 0:32:18This natural, beautiful sound.
0:32:18 > 0:32:20And so he took full advantage of it.
0:32:20 > 0:32:22CHIMES ECHO
0:32:22 > 0:32:24Each time the ball was hit,
0:32:24 > 0:32:27one of the lights around the armoury went out.
0:32:27 > 0:32:32- What happened towards the end?- They kept playing.- Did they?- They did.
0:32:32 > 0:32:35And once it was dark, completely, the second part started.
0:32:38 > 0:32:41500 people came onto the floor in the darkness and as they came in,
0:32:41 > 0:32:44they each said, "My name is, my name is..."
0:32:44 > 0:32:46I am Walter Segal.
0:32:46 > 0:32:48I am Barbara Wold.
0:32:48 > 0:32:53And then as the crowd's part finished, a spotlight went on to
0:32:53 > 0:32:58a figure in a sack and you began to hear this voice singing.
0:32:58 > 0:33:01CHORAL SINGING
0:33:01 > 0:33:04And Bob would pick her up and put her down at a certain point,
0:33:04 > 0:33:07let her sing a bit longer, pick her up and put her down somewhere else.
0:33:07 > 0:33:09It's pure performance art.
0:33:09 > 0:33:13It's very, very simple, very human gestures.
0:33:17 > 0:33:20Helping Rauschenberg bring his performance to life was
0:33:20 > 0:33:24a visionary scientist from Bell Laboratories called Billy Kluver.
0:33:25 > 0:33:28Through the organisation they formed -
0:33:28 > 0:33:30Experiments in Art and Technology -
0:33:30 > 0:33:34the pair would go on to produce inventive, interactive work
0:33:34 > 0:33:38that married art with cutting-edge technology.
0:33:42 > 0:33:45You know, looking back - EAT and the collaborations with Bob -
0:33:45 > 0:33:50it really was part of the utopian enterprises of the '60s,
0:33:50 > 0:33:54certainly with the election of JFK and then with the moon travel,
0:33:54 > 0:33:57it was incredible optimism for America.
0:33:57 > 0:34:00So the promise of technology was quite strong and the promise
0:34:00 > 0:34:05that the individual working with the technology could make a difference.
0:34:05 > 0:34:09And I think Bob was supremely committed to that idea.
0:34:09 > 0:34:12# OK, friends, it's time for the Fatback Band
0:34:12 > 0:34:13# Yeah
0:34:13 > 0:34:17# Wicky-wacky... #
0:34:17 > 0:34:20By the mid '60s, Rauschenberg had enough money to buy himself
0:34:20 > 0:34:24a large studio in a converted Catholic orphanage
0:34:24 > 0:34:26on Lafayette Street in downtown Manhattan.
0:34:28 > 0:34:32And it quickly became a favourite hang-out for all the people
0:34:32 > 0:34:34Rauschenberg was collaborating with at the time.
0:34:36 > 0:34:39It was like every day was a party.
0:34:39 > 0:34:41It was always, you know, hilarious.
0:34:42 > 0:34:46I mean, I just remember that we just laughed a lot. You know?
0:34:49 > 0:34:52You felt you were part of a family, when you're sitting round the table,
0:34:52 > 0:34:55Lafayette Street, you're part of Bob's family.
0:34:55 > 0:34:58I think a lot of people felt that.
0:34:58 > 0:35:02Another regular visitor to Rauschenberg's Lafayette studio
0:35:02 > 0:35:04was his teenage son, Christopher.
0:35:06 > 0:35:08So this is the kitchen.
0:35:08 > 0:35:11This is the part of the house where, really, everything happened.
0:35:11 > 0:35:15I mean, yes, work was made in the studio but, basically, everything...
0:35:15 > 0:35:17This was the conviviality in here?
0:35:17 > 0:35:21So, you... I mean, as a boy, you must remember this really well.
0:35:21 > 0:35:23- Yeah.- You'd come in here, this is where you'd see your dad.
0:35:23 > 0:35:26And this is within walking distance of my mom's house in Chinatown,
0:35:26 > 0:35:28so I would just get off the subway at Astor Place
0:35:28 > 0:35:30and come in and hang out.
0:35:30 > 0:35:33He always had Haagen-Dazs ice cream in there, so that was OK.
0:35:33 > 0:35:35Was this the original range that was...?
0:35:35 > 0:35:37Yeah, from the orphanage.
0:35:37 > 0:35:40- BAGPIPE-LIKE DRONE What a noise!- There you go.
0:35:40 > 0:35:43John Cage wouldn't want me to turn that sound off.
0:35:43 > 0:35:48But maybe we will need some hot holder here.
0:35:48 > 0:35:49And who would you...?
0:35:49 > 0:35:51I mean, if you walked up the stairs and came into the kitchen
0:35:51 > 0:35:55- as we have just done...- Yes? - ..who typically might you run into?
0:35:55 > 0:35:57Pretty much anybody.
0:35:57 > 0:36:00So, you must have felt very glamorous to be coming over here,
0:36:00 > 0:36:05because here was this space, centre of parties, this charismatic man
0:36:05 > 0:36:08who was always at the centre of attention, also dating other men.
0:36:08 > 0:36:10Sure, yeah. He had great boyfriends.
0:36:10 > 0:36:12You would meet them, interact with them?
0:36:12 > 0:36:14Oh, yeah. Sure. Yeah.
0:36:14 > 0:36:17They were terrific friends and wonderful grown-ups for me to be
0:36:17 > 0:36:21around when I was a young adult or teenager, so it was all good.
0:36:21 > 0:36:24So, I get the impression that your memories of your dad
0:36:24 > 0:36:26- sound remarkably positive.- Yeah.
0:36:26 > 0:36:29But there is another element about him that is very well-known,
0:36:29 > 0:36:32which I imagine could have been quite disruptive in a dad,
0:36:32 > 0:36:34which is that he was an alcoholic.
0:36:34 > 0:36:36What are your memories of that?
0:36:36 > 0:36:38It depended.
0:36:38 > 0:36:40I mean, there were periods of his life
0:36:40 > 0:36:42where he drank a lot and it was OK.
0:36:42 > 0:36:47There was a period later in his life where it was really a problem
0:36:47 > 0:36:52and he was really struggling and not, you know...
0:36:52 > 0:36:54- You witnessed this? - Oh, absolutely, yeah.
0:36:54 > 0:36:56As in, he couldn't work?
0:36:56 > 0:36:59Well, he always could work, but he was really, sort of, tortured by it.
0:37:00 > 0:37:04I don't think he made much of his art while he was drunk.
0:37:04 > 0:37:07I mean, I think if he was drunk, he was drunk.
0:37:07 > 0:37:10He was not in a position to make art.
0:37:10 > 0:37:14I mean, Bob had an enormous ability to drink.
0:37:14 > 0:37:18I've never seen anybody drink like that in my life.
0:37:18 > 0:37:20I think he became dependent on it.
0:37:20 > 0:37:24Did you see a change in his personality as well,
0:37:24 > 0:37:26the way he interacted with other people?
0:37:26 > 0:37:33He became less considerate of others when he was drunk.
0:37:33 > 0:37:37He was never nasty to me.
0:37:37 > 0:37:42He could be cutting to people when he was drunk.
0:37:42 > 0:37:45But what was it that was driving him to drink that much?
0:37:45 > 0:37:47I don't...I don't know.
0:37:47 > 0:37:51I only know that Bob was a perceptual machine.
0:37:51 > 0:37:54Everything that was happening in the world
0:37:54 > 0:37:57was being loaded through every pore of his skin.
0:37:57 > 0:38:01That's a very heavy burden to carry.
0:38:07 > 0:38:10In 1970, with his drinking out of hand
0:38:10 > 0:38:13and his creativity at a low ebb,
0:38:13 > 0:38:16Rauschenberg decided it was time to clean himself up,
0:38:16 > 0:38:21get out of New York and make a fresh start elsewhere.
0:38:37 > 0:38:42# Sunday morning
0:38:42 > 0:38:46# Brings the dawn in... #
0:38:46 > 0:38:49The beautiful island of Captiva, off the coast of Florida,
0:38:49 > 0:38:53where Rauschenberg lived for the next 40 years,
0:38:53 > 0:38:56would provide the haven he'd need to start working again.
0:39:01 > 0:39:03Not a bad place in the world, is it?
0:39:03 > 0:39:06- Can we just stay here? - Yeah, I think we're done, right?
0:39:06 > 0:39:08- Exactly.- Where's the towels and...?
0:39:08 > 0:39:10- The cocktails.- Yeah.
0:39:10 > 0:39:12So, I mean, this is the place where there are all of these...
0:39:12 > 0:39:15- I can see them already. - Oh, absolutely.
0:39:15 > 0:39:17This is famous for people collecting shells.
0:39:17 > 0:39:19Yeah, one of the best shelling places in the world.
0:39:19 > 0:39:22And the fishing's amazing. Bob, you know, every day.
0:39:22 > 0:39:24- So, he'd be like this man? - Absolutely.
0:39:24 > 0:39:27There's pictures of him. That pose is perfect.
0:39:29 > 0:39:30When did he first come here?
0:39:30 > 0:39:34Well, someone had told him about this island and so he said,
0:39:34 > 0:39:37"I'm going down there to check it out," and what he told me was,
0:39:37 > 0:39:40he got on the island, he had to stop the car for a turtle
0:39:40 > 0:39:43to cross the road and he just loved that. That was it.
0:39:43 > 0:39:45So then he bought this house.
0:39:54 > 0:39:56Come on in to the beach house. This place is great.
0:39:57 > 0:39:59If these walls could talk...
0:40:01 > 0:40:03I'll tell you what I love about it, it's not grand.
0:40:03 > 0:40:06- It's not massive, yeah. - It's not huge.- Simple, yeah.
0:40:06 > 0:40:07- It's humble living.- Absolutely.
0:40:07 > 0:40:10- And that's clearly part of the thing - just keep it relaxed.- Right.
0:40:10 > 0:40:13He had no furniture, cos he wanted it very minimal
0:40:13 > 0:40:15and he actually added this wall,
0:40:15 > 0:40:17because everything was about hanging art, right?
0:40:17 > 0:40:20So he needed more wall space. So that was built and added.
0:40:20 > 0:40:23- If I was staying here, Matt, I'd get nothing done.- Exactly.
0:40:23 > 0:40:26I'd sleep, I'd swim, I'd snooze, I'd read.
0:40:26 > 0:40:27- Yeah.- What was he doing?
0:40:27 > 0:40:31His routine was, you know, he worked late.
0:40:31 > 0:40:33So he wasn't exactly an early riser,
0:40:33 > 0:40:35but he would always get up, take care of any of the business
0:40:35 > 0:40:39that was going on - correspondence, those kinds of things.
0:40:39 > 0:40:41- Kind of lunchtime this is going on? - Yeah, around ten.
0:40:41 > 0:40:43Young And The Restless, had to see the soap opera,
0:40:43 > 0:40:47- that was a definite.- Well, it's just wonderful. You know, there he is.
0:40:47 > 0:40:49That's one of my favourite photos of him.
0:40:49 > 0:40:52And that smile, if you look at all the pictures throughout his life,
0:40:52 > 0:40:55that's what you see, is that smile.
0:40:55 > 0:40:58So this was like the centre of his universe for a long time, right?
0:40:58 > 0:41:03Yeah. From 1970, he made 99% of his art,
0:41:03 > 0:41:07if not a little bit higher, here on this island.
0:41:07 > 0:41:10So this, I think, might have saved his life.
0:41:10 > 0:41:13I think that coming here, just giving him that licence
0:41:13 > 0:41:16to just stop worrying about business and things and make art.
0:41:21 > 0:41:23I went to an astrologer once.
0:41:23 > 0:41:29I was having some kind of serious psychological dilemmas
0:41:29 > 0:41:35and he said, "I'll tell you one thing, don't go to the mountains.
0:41:35 > 0:41:37"Hit the sun and the water."
0:41:39 > 0:41:44I was worried about how I would adjust to it.
0:41:44 > 0:41:47I thought, "I'm going to miss New York so much,"
0:41:47 > 0:41:49and it turned out that I love it.
0:41:54 > 0:41:59Today, thanks to a scheme run by the foundation set up in his name,
0:41:59 > 0:42:02Rauschenberg's multifaceted approach to art is kept alive
0:42:02 > 0:42:04by a new generation of artists.
0:42:09 > 0:42:14Bob had envisioned a residency in Captiva being used for artists.
0:42:14 > 0:42:18He was really about creative exploration and I think that
0:42:18 > 0:42:22the foundation has this natural tendency to try different things,
0:42:22 > 0:42:27to keep it very creative and test some of those boundaries.
0:42:28 > 0:42:32The fact that we are able to have his studio full of these
0:42:32 > 0:42:35really interesting artists, in all fields from all over,
0:42:35 > 0:42:40we are able to continue doing the things he would do.
0:42:40 > 0:42:45Yeah, he's gone, but he is still in conversation with millions of people
0:42:45 > 0:42:49and they all come away deeply moved by his spirit
0:42:49 > 0:42:52and the generosity and, "Let's all work together."
0:43:05 > 0:43:09I already knew that Captiva was a really special place,
0:43:09 > 0:43:12but coming here to the fish house, it's so surprising,
0:43:12 > 0:43:16because Rauschenberg made art that was frenetic, it was urban.
0:43:16 > 0:43:20He had this restless spirit and this place,
0:43:20 > 0:43:23its magic is all about stillness and tranquillity.
0:43:25 > 0:43:27And I find it really moving,
0:43:27 > 0:43:32thinking of this mercurial man whose soul was in perpetual motion,
0:43:32 > 0:43:37if you like, who needed to come here, seeking peace, craving peace.
0:43:37 > 0:43:41And it was this place that provided him with that solace
0:43:41 > 0:43:43that he clearly always craved.
0:43:46 > 0:43:51I think that Captiva really was a parting of the seas,
0:43:51 > 0:43:56of the noise of urban life and allowing him to be a part of nature.
0:43:56 > 0:44:00It was a place where he could find his own ideas
0:44:00 > 0:44:03and look at the natural environment in a new way.
0:44:06 > 0:44:08With his drinking now under control,
0:44:08 > 0:44:11Rauschenberg started creating new works
0:44:11 > 0:44:14that, even on the tropical island of Captiva,
0:44:14 > 0:44:18were inspired by the everyday materials he'd always been drawn to.
0:44:21 > 0:44:27"A desire built up in me to work in a material of waste and softness.
0:44:27 > 0:44:31"Something yielding with its only message a collection of lines
0:44:31 > 0:44:33"imprinted like a friendly joke.
0:44:33 > 0:44:38"A silent discussion of their history exposed by the new shapes.
0:44:38 > 0:44:41"Laboured, commonly with happiness - boxes."
0:44:41 > 0:44:44So any kind of imagery
0:44:44 > 0:44:49on the cardboard series is what was on the boxes when he found them -
0:44:49 > 0:44:52"This side up," or "Handle with care," whatever.
0:44:52 > 0:44:54It's not like he commissioned them.
0:44:54 > 0:44:56These are boxes that have genuinely been used.
0:44:56 > 0:44:58So, when you see the writing on them...
0:44:58 > 0:45:01What does this say? "Phillips plated."
0:45:01 > 0:45:05It's just totally commercial things, which he's turned into art.
0:45:05 > 0:45:08- Right.- What are these at the far end of the room?
0:45:08 > 0:45:11This is a series that is called Early Egyptians,
0:45:11 > 0:45:14and those are cardboard boxes
0:45:14 > 0:45:18that he then took out to the beach in front of the studio
0:45:18 > 0:45:23and covered them with an adhesive and put sand on them
0:45:23 > 0:45:27and then he painted the backs with Day-Glo paint,
0:45:27 > 0:45:30which then reflects in colour against the wall.
0:45:30 > 0:45:33You can see little hints of red or other colours on them.
0:45:33 > 0:45:35That's really hiding the light under a bushel.
0:45:35 > 0:45:37I mean, this is bright orange here.
0:45:37 > 0:45:39I would never have known that if you hadn't told me.
0:45:39 > 0:45:41Can we look at some of the other work?
0:45:41 > 0:45:44This is an incredible sculpture. What's this?
0:45:45 > 0:45:48This specific work is called Global Chute
0:45:48 > 0:45:50and obviously with the globe in the top
0:45:50 > 0:45:53and what looks like a chute from a rooftop or whatever.
0:45:53 > 0:45:56This must be... I mean, it genuinely looks like
0:45:56 > 0:45:58- a piece of architecture that he salvaged.- Right.
0:45:58 > 0:46:00It's fallen off the top of the building.
0:46:00 > 0:46:03It's almost as though the Earth is heading this direction,
0:46:03 > 0:46:05towards the garbage.
0:46:05 > 0:46:08How much was he thinking about, from the '70s on,
0:46:08 > 0:46:11real ecological, environmental issues?
0:46:11 > 0:46:14He was very concerned with environmental issues.
0:46:14 > 0:46:16There was a Captiva conservation organisation,
0:46:16 > 0:46:20so he was both concerned locally with what was just around his house
0:46:20 > 0:46:22and his studio and then globally -
0:46:22 > 0:46:26if he could support a major cause worldwide, he would do that as well.
0:46:31 > 0:46:33In the early '80s,
0:46:33 > 0:46:36the social and environmental concerns underpinning all of his art
0:46:36 > 0:46:41saw Rauschenberg shift his focus beyond Captiva's calm shores.
0:46:44 > 0:46:48He now embarked on an ambitious humanitarian project,
0:46:48 > 0:46:51crisscrossing the globe to promote world peace through his art.
0:46:53 > 0:46:57ROCI - the Rauschenberg Overseas Culture Interchange -
0:46:57 > 0:47:02would take him to 11 countries and consume all his energies
0:47:02 > 0:47:04for the best part of a decade.
0:47:06 > 0:47:09Bob said, "I know what I want to do.
0:47:09 > 0:47:12"I want to go to various countries,
0:47:12 > 0:47:17"countries that are challenged and look at the art of that country,
0:47:17 > 0:47:20"meet with the indigenous people, speak to students,
0:47:20 > 0:47:25"sense the political situation and gather information and objects
0:47:25 > 0:47:31"to produce work as an offering to the people of the country."
0:47:31 > 0:47:32OK, important distinction.
0:47:32 > 0:47:35Yes, "to the people of the country."
0:47:35 > 0:47:37So, was this more about art or perhaps
0:47:37 > 0:47:38more about a kind of activism?
0:47:38 > 0:47:40Well, I think it's both.
0:47:40 > 0:47:43Many of the countries were oppressive
0:47:43 > 0:47:48and he wanted to offer to tradition-bound people
0:47:48 > 0:47:53an alternative way of seeing, of feeling, of thinking.
0:47:54 > 0:47:59It's a peace mission without a missionary.
0:47:59 > 0:48:03Through information about each other, around the world,
0:48:03 > 0:48:08we might be able to stop some of the stupidity
0:48:08 > 0:48:13that are controlling us, because I'm being controlled
0:48:13 > 0:48:17by probably an equal amount of stupidity as you are.
0:48:27 > 0:48:31These paintings were all from his exhibition in Cuba.
0:48:31 > 0:48:34Oh, you can see, for instance, there are some of the stars of there,
0:48:34 > 0:48:37- but this is this old Cuban classic car.- Right.
0:48:37 > 0:48:40And this looks like a skull.
0:48:40 > 0:48:46Bob felt that a work wasn't finished until the viewer finishes the work
0:48:46 > 0:48:49by coming to it and bringing his reaction.
0:48:49 > 0:48:53To show that in a physical way, he put a mirror in it
0:48:53 > 0:48:56and then there's the viewer in the picture.
0:48:56 > 0:48:58And particularly disconcerting that here,
0:48:58 > 0:49:01my head is almost directly parallel with the skull.
0:49:01 > 0:49:03If you stand in the right place.
0:49:03 > 0:49:06That seems to be Rauschenberg's funny joke.
0:49:06 > 0:49:09They're always incredibly serious, but very light-hearted
0:49:09 > 0:49:13and humorous often and just pretty much everything caught his eye.
0:49:17 > 0:49:20These are some negatives from when Bob was in Moscow.
0:49:20 > 0:49:23So this is an example of what he did in ROCI?
0:49:23 > 0:49:24He'd go to a country and...
0:49:24 > 0:49:27Walk around, take pictures, pick up debris.
0:49:27 > 0:49:31Pick up whatever seemed to him to speak of the place.
0:49:31 > 0:49:33So what's caught his eye here?
0:49:33 > 0:49:36There's architecture of the city, is that an old woman on a bus?
0:49:36 > 0:49:39- Yes, I think that's the driver. - That's the driver, maybe.
0:49:39 > 0:49:42Oh, yeah, so it is. And this is just broken fencing or something,
0:49:42 > 0:49:44but there's a great sense, just looking at this,
0:49:44 > 0:49:46it gives you that idea of he's there presumably
0:49:46 > 0:49:49with a camera the whole time - click, click, click.
0:49:49 > 0:49:51Now, I may be biased, because I'm a photographer, but to me,
0:49:51 > 0:49:54his whole way of looking at the world is the way a photographer
0:49:54 > 0:49:56looks at the world. They look at things that other people
0:49:56 > 0:49:59would just walk by and say, "Oh, that's nothing."
0:49:59 > 0:50:03I think photography really was very, very central.
0:50:03 > 0:50:05I mean, I guess you've pulled this out,
0:50:05 > 0:50:07because is this him writing about it?
0:50:07 > 0:50:09- Yes, yes.- What does he say about it?
0:50:09 > 0:50:15"My preoccupation with photography in the beginning, 1949, was first
0:50:15 > 0:50:19"supported by a personal conflict between shyness and curiosity.
0:50:20 > 0:50:23"The camera functioned as a social shield.
0:50:23 > 0:50:26"In 1981, I think of the camera as my permission
0:50:26 > 0:50:30"to walk into every shadow or watch while any light changes.
0:50:32 > 0:50:35"My concern is to move at a speed within which to act.
0:50:35 > 0:50:38"Photography is the most direct communication
0:50:38 > 0:50:40"in non-violent contacts."
0:50:43 > 0:50:44Bob was not naive.
0:50:44 > 0:50:47He certainly didn't think that he was going to produce peace
0:50:47 > 0:50:50in our time through the ROCI exhibition.
0:50:50 > 0:50:54But I listened and watched the dialogue between Rauschenberg
0:50:54 > 0:50:56and people on the street.
0:50:56 > 0:50:58He made a difference.
0:50:58 > 0:51:02If you were on the street with him and you realised how he
0:51:02 > 0:51:07physically and literally touched people with his humanity.
0:51:07 > 0:51:09I mean, he exuded humanity.
0:51:09 > 0:51:11He exuded caring.
0:51:11 > 0:51:13Is Rauschenberg almost this one-man United Nations?
0:51:13 > 0:51:18Absolutely. He wanted a purity to this and, in the end,
0:51:18 > 0:51:22there was a decision on Bob's behalf that he could not be seen
0:51:22 > 0:51:27as taking funding from any organisation or government.
0:51:27 > 0:51:29And so he funded himself.
0:51:29 > 0:51:35He sold his Twomblys and his Jasper Johns, all to fund ROCI.
0:51:35 > 0:51:38- It's a testament to the integrity of ROCI.- Absolutely.
0:51:40 > 0:51:43For Rauschenberg, ROCI was a labour of love
0:51:43 > 0:51:48and one that cost him a personal fortune of up to 10 million.
0:51:48 > 0:51:53But to others, it seemed a naively idealistic project.
0:51:53 > 0:51:55I lost most of my dealers.
0:51:55 > 0:51:57They thought this was a...
0:51:57 > 0:52:01Sort of an extravagant waste of time and talent.
0:52:04 > 0:52:07But that was its function.
0:52:08 > 0:52:13How best I could world-widely waste my time and talent and money.
0:52:16 > 0:52:19We did all three very well, didn't we, Don?
0:52:26 > 0:52:28That's a really good one.
0:52:28 > 0:52:32With his professional fortunes at an all-time low,
0:52:32 > 0:52:36Rauschenberg retreated to his vast studio in Captiva
0:52:36 > 0:52:39and, regardless, made new work based on imagery
0:52:39 > 0:52:41from his travels for ROCI.
0:52:47 > 0:52:50This is, essentially, the fabrication studio downstairs
0:52:50 > 0:52:53- and the upstairs was where he would create the works.- Mm-hm.
0:52:53 > 0:52:55Imagine, if you will,
0:52:55 > 0:52:57it was a wall of racks of silk-screens and there was
0:52:57 > 0:53:02probably 500 silk-screens and they were all lined up vertically.
0:53:02 > 0:53:05But it was unique, because Bob would be upstairs
0:53:05 > 0:53:06and he would have this large book,
0:53:06 > 0:53:09and he would say, "Bring me Chile 203,"
0:53:09 > 0:53:13or, "Japan 506," or whatever and we would bring the screens up.
0:53:13 > 0:53:15Then he would work on them.
0:53:15 > 0:53:19But though Rauschenberg continued to be inspired by his global adventure,
0:53:19 > 0:53:23by the early '90s, New York's art world felt he'd lost his way.
0:53:30 > 0:53:34There was a pretty general wave of turning against Bob
0:53:34 > 0:53:37and the same thing happened to Picasso
0:53:37 > 0:53:40in the later stages of his career.
0:53:40 > 0:53:45Critics began saying he hadn't done anything good since 1938,
0:53:45 > 0:53:50but with Bob, I think what happened was that he's such a producer
0:53:50 > 0:53:54and in Captiva, with a team around him, and a lot of resistance,
0:53:54 > 0:53:57the production got larger and larger.
0:53:57 > 0:54:01And in that situation, you can't possibly expect everything
0:54:01 > 0:54:03to be at the highest level.
0:54:03 > 0:54:06But there was always three or four or five
0:54:06 > 0:54:10that were absolutely dead on top flight Rauschenberg.
0:54:13 > 0:54:15In the last decade of his life,
0:54:15 > 0:54:19the rest of the art world seemed to catch up with this thinking.
0:54:19 > 0:54:23And the man who had become something of an unsung prophet in his own land
0:54:23 > 0:54:25was awarded with a major retrospective
0:54:25 > 0:54:28at New York's Guggenheim Museum -
0:54:28 > 0:54:31recognition for an artist who'd consistently
0:54:31 > 0:54:33broken new ground over six decades.
0:54:36 > 0:54:41But in 2002, aged 76, America's arguably most prolific
0:54:41 > 0:54:44and original artist suffered a stroke
0:54:44 > 0:54:46that left his right arm paralysed.
0:54:49 > 0:54:52It was the beginning of the end for a man who'd lived for his art.
0:54:55 > 0:54:59I remember being in the studio one day with him and we were looking at,
0:54:59 > 0:55:03I think, the last set of paintings that he made.
0:55:05 > 0:55:09And it became kind of still
0:55:09 > 0:55:11and sweet...
0:55:12 > 0:55:15..and he began to cry.
0:55:15 > 0:55:21And he said to me, "Ernie, I have lost so much."
0:55:21 > 0:55:23What did you say to him?
0:55:23 > 0:55:26I told him that he had given us so much
0:55:26 > 0:55:29and that it would always be with us
0:55:29 > 0:55:32and that, for a man who had lost so much,
0:55:32 > 0:55:35it was a pretty fabulous set of paintings.
0:55:37 > 0:55:42What can you say to someone you love, but be realistic?
0:55:42 > 0:55:45Bob knew that his life was soon to be over,
0:55:45 > 0:55:48that he couldn't continue to live like that.
0:55:52 > 0:55:57By 2008, Rauschenberg's health had dramatically declined.
0:55:57 > 0:56:01And following heart disease, he was put on a life-support machine.
0:56:05 > 0:56:11Bob had been really almost sick to death three other times,
0:56:11 > 0:56:14in the intensive unit and whatever,
0:56:14 > 0:56:17and he got well.
0:56:17 > 0:56:20So I always felt that he could make it through this one,
0:56:20 > 0:56:22but then, he was so sick
0:56:22 > 0:56:25and he wanted to go back to Captiva.
0:56:25 > 0:56:28He did not want to die in a hospital.
0:56:28 > 0:56:31What happened at the very end, Janet?
0:56:31 > 0:56:33Because, as I understand it,
0:56:33 > 0:56:37he took a conscious decision to end things, didn't he?
0:56:37 > 0:56:42He had a trachea thing and they would not be able
0:56:42 > 0:56:46to ever get him back breathing on his own.
0:56:46 > 0:56:48And so he didn't want to...
0:56:48 > 0:56:51That was not the way he wanted to live.
0:56:51 > 0:56:56And I was just mortified by it and I told him, I said, "Let's just wait.
0:56:56 > 0:56:57"Maybe you'll get better."
0:56:57 > 0:57:01And so he just kind of squeezed my hand and he said,
0:57:01 > 0:57:03"Let me go, please."
0:57:03 > 0:57:06So, we had to do that.
0:57:07 > 0:57:09I still miss him so much.
0:57:10 > 0:57:15I think the best job in the whole world was being Bob's little sister.
0:57:15 > 0:57:17It was so much fun.
0:57:17 > 0:57:20It was entertaining, but it was meaningful, too.
0:57:20 > 0:57:22I learned a lot from him. A lot.
0:57:26 > 0:57:28He was such an amazing person -
0:57:28 > 0:57:30his sense of humour, he was such a giver.
0:57:30 > 0:57:34And everybody would say that, you know, there was just something.
0:57:34 > 0:57:36One of a kind, broke the mould.
0:57:36 > 0:57:39All those cliches, if you will, that was Bob.
0:57:41 > 0:57:45I would think from time to time, as an art student,
0:57:45 > 0:57:51that I wish I could have been around the likes of Leonardo or Cezanne
0:57:51 > 0:57:57or Picasso and then I realised, especially towards the end,
0:57:57 > 0:58:00that I had been in the presence of that kind of genius.
0:58:00 > 0:58:03He was profound, simply profound.
0:58:03 > 0:58:06And we were all the beneficiaries because of it.
0:58:06 > 0:58:11So much of the work we see today has its roots in things
0:58:11 > 0:58:13that Rauschenberg did.
0:58:13 > 0:58:18Every corner of his work can be mined and used by younger artists,
0:58:18 > 0:58:21as a starting point or as an opening point.
0:58:21 > 0:58:24He opened everything up.
0:58:24 > 0:58:26He opened the world up.
0:58:27 > 0:58:29And it's still going on.
0:58:44 > 0:58:49# Hey, hey, hey, hey
0:58:49 > 0:58:53# This is a perfect work
0:58:53 > 0:58:58# Your photograph. #