I don't think of myself as a big fan of Robert Rauschenberg. Those big red-blue-and-yellow photo collages with JFK's face and an astronaut and a cow and whatnot just don't do that much for me, personally. They just don't quite fit in to the special art receptors in my brain. But the cool thing about the Rauschenberg show currently up at SFMOMA is that, in addition to a goodly sampling of that most well-known work, we also get to see a huge variety of the artist's work in other media: abstract paintings, assemblages and sculptures, cyanotypes, things made with cloth and textiles, my very favorite (bottom-most photo) the unfolded blue-painted cardboard box, and even a giant tank of bubbling mud that I didn't manage to get a decent picture of. And I enjoyed this new, to me, stuff so much more! Now, it may just be that thing where you haven't seen something (and been told how important it is) a million times and so can come to it with fresh eyes and appreciate it on its own terms. But I do also think it's that, to me, this stuff is just really cool. It fits my brain. See for yourself!
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