"I Don't Think About Being Great" Cover Art. Photo courtesy of the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation.
Join us for a special evening celebrating the release of I Don’t Think About Being Great (Yale University Press, 2024), a new book of writings by the artist Robert Rauschenberg. While he was acclaimed for his diverse, six-decade career as an artist, his written work is less known and is published here for the first time.
The program will be moderated by editor Francine Snyder, Director of Archives at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, and feature artists Scott Bluedorn and Evan Yee – Student Art Festival: Rauschenberg 100artists and alumni from the Rauschenberg Residency on Captiva -, who will share reflections on their time in residency and the ways in which Rauschenberg’s spirit of experimentation continues to inspire their work.
Presented in honor of the Rauschenberg Centennial and in conjunction with Guild Hall’s Student Art Festival: Rauschenberg 100, the evening celebrates Rauschenberg’s legacy as an artist, collaborator, and catalyst for creativity across generations.
Copies of I Don’t Think About Being Great are available for purchase during the reservation checkout process or on the day of the program, subject to availability.
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Francine Snyder
Francine Snyder specializes in artist and museum archives, and in fostering research and scholarship on contemporary cross-disciplinary creative practices. Since 2015, as Director of Archives & Digital at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, Snyder has been responsible for the leadership and management of the Foundation archives, with the goal of increasing access to and use of archival materials. Major initiatives include the Foundation’s Fair Use Policy, intended to reduce barriers to image use; the Archives Research Residency, a program that supports multi-week research intensives within the collection; and a forthcoming expanded digital archives. This fall, her publication I Don’t Think About Being Great: Select Writings by Robert Rauschenberg, co-published by the Foundation and Yale University Press, will be released, highlighting Rauschenberg's love of words.
Photo: Mara Lavitt
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Scott Bluedorn
Scott Bluedorn is an artist, illustrator and designer working in various media including painting, drawing, print process, installation and found object assemblage. His work engages with the intersection of human culture and the natural world in the anthropocene era defined by climate change and the alteration of environments by human agency, while incorporating elements of science, myth, mysticism and the supernatural. Scott lives and works on eastern Long Island, and work is in the collection of the Parrish Art Museum of Watermill, NY, Edward Albee Foundation, and numerous private collections.
Photo by Linda Alpern
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Evan Yee
Evan Yee is a sculptor, designer and metalworker who co-founded a collaborative studio in Brooklyn, New York. The studio, Liberty Labs Foundation, hosts independent designers, artists, architects and highly skilled artisans. Located in the historic Liberty Warehouse, it was once home to the Statue of Liberty before it was installed in New York Harbor in 1886.
Originally from Oakland, California, Yee began splitting his time between there and Sag Harbor as a teenager. It was then, that a bi-coastal arts practice began to emerge. Yee eventually got his BFA from Pratt Institute with a major in sculpture and an emphasis in metalwork. That skillset set him on a path to pursuing artwork, furniture design and fabrication.
Yee’s sculpture work is often a critique of current trends and objects. His past installation “The App Store” for the 2014 Parrish Road show, set up a fake Apple store with sculpture that questioned the technological optimisms of the time. Later, his work for the “Museum of Capitalism” took objects and cast them in amber or core samples to look at the Anthropocene from a futuristic lens. Yee’s current work focuses on taking familiar things of the everyday and distorting their materiality.
Image courtesy of the artist.
Sponsors
Student Art Festival: Rauschenberg 100:
This project is supported by the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation. With support from the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, Guild Hall joins an international roster of institutions commemorating the artist’s 100th birthday.
Additional support provided by Dime Community Bank
Media Partner: The East Hampton Star
Visual Arts programs are supported by funding from Barbara and Richard S. Lane, Lucio and Joan Noto, The Michael Lynne Museum Endowment, The Melville Straus Family Endowment, and additional support provided by The Giuppy Nantista Fund and The Hoie Fund.
Additional support provided by Friends of the Museum: Shari and Jeff Aronson, The Artist Profile Archive, William L. Bernhard, Elizabeth Gordon and Woody Heller, The Hayden Family Foundation, Robert Longo and Sophie Chahinian, Elin and Michael Nierenberg, Onna House, Lori and John Reinsberg, Jeff and Audrey Spiegel, Hillary and Jeff Suchman, Jane Wesman and Don Savelson, and Yurman Family Foundation.
Free gallery admission is sponsored, in part, by Landscape Details.
Learning + New Works programs are supported in part by funding from Bobbie Braun -The Neuwirth Foundation, the Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Endowment Fund, The Melville Straus Family Endowment, and additional support by Collegiate Gateway.
Additional support provided by Friends of Learning + New Works: Toni and Seth Bernstein, Julie Raynor Gross, Stephanie Joyce and Jim Vos, S. Kutler Foundation, N. Glickberg, D. Glickberg, and J. Abrahams, and Barbara Toll.
