Rauschenberg’s Bed, 1955
Art is a threadbare quilt aggrandized with paint, hung on a wall with a spattered pillow, christened, Bed. Gallons of effusion, in red yellow, blue, black, pour over it for decades-- the drip is an emblem of the authentic moment. The praise of the cognoscenti anoints the Artist with the imprimatur of ironic, witty genius. Never an inkling of recoil at his contempt for art that works, art that keeps you warm--the art of women. For real women--contempt for his grandmother, hands knotted around her needle, pushing it with her grandmother’s thimble, or contempt for the girl in a dim Charleston sweatshop, a hundred sewing machines like wasps buzzing around her, or contempt for who knows what woman, but quilting, I say, is women’s art. A woman made this and a man was praised for throwing paint on it. Barbara Carlton Barbara Carlton is a writer of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction. She lives in San Diego, California. In her other professional life she is an architect. In her personal life she is the mother of two grown children and the servant of two cats known as the Permanent Toddlers.
1 Comment
1/15/2018 09:59:02 am
Sorry I love you,but wearing a dress like this is asking for trouble,men just can not not want to touch,so you are asking to be touched.
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June 2025
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