Clan Destiny 1995

This is Robert Rauschenberg’s *Clan Destiny*, made sometime during his lifetime, using collage and screen printing. Just imagine Rauschenberg in his studio, gathering images from newspapers and magazines. Then he’s pulling a squeegee across a screen, layering image upon image. You get the sense that he is playing with how information is received, constructing some kind of fragmented narrative. I sympathize with this. When I’m making paintings, I feel like I’m having a conversation with the world. I throw things on, scrape them off. It’s a back and forth. Here, Rauschenberg seems to be riffing on ideas of architecture, nature, bodies in motion, and… well, I don’t know, that’s the point! Rauschenberg had a knack for pulling together disparate elements and making them sing. He's got that inverted diver, kids walking in nature, and architectural scaffolding. What do they mean together? Maybe it’s a question about how we construct our understanding of the world? I see echoes of Jasper Johns and Warhol here. Artists are always in dialogue, challenging and inspiring each other.