美国国家公共电台 NPR Wear Comfortable Shoes: This Art Exhibition Covers '1/4 Mile'

 

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Painter Robert Rauschenberg once measured the distance from his house to his studio in Captiva, Fla., and then he made an artwork that is as long as his measurements. He called it "The 1/4 Mile" or "2 Furlong Piece," 1981 to 1998. It is an enormous series of panels. NPR special correspondent Susan Stamberg just walked through the work at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. She wore some comfy shoes.

SUSAN STAMBERG, BYLINE¹: Here's something nice Robert Rauschenberg once said on PBS.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG: My greatest joy is in working. That's when I feel a wholeness and a celebration of a unity² with everything around me.

STAMBERG: So that quarter-mile walk from house to studio was a commute³ toward joy.

KATIA ZAVISTOVSKI: He talked a lot about working in that fertile, creative space between art and life.

STAMBERG: Katia Zavistovski co-curated the exhibit with LACMA director Michael Govan. It was Govan's dream to show all 190 panels. The dream's come true for the first time ever.

MICHAEL GOVAN: You can't remember it, and you can't see it in reproduction.

STAMBERG: It's a memoir⁴, Govan says, a walk through the artist's life. Panels painted and collaged⁵ with photos, fabrics⁶, checkered⁷ tablecloths⁸ you'd see at some red-sauce Italian restaurant, even T-shirts flattened⁹ for paint - stuff that meant something to Rauschenberg.

It's very personal. But how does it mean anything to the rest of us?

GOVAN: It means everything to the rest of us.

STAMBERG: Panel 1 is full of things we know - magazine and newspaper images of rocket ships, flowers, money, a cup of coffee.

GOVAN: You start your day with a cup of coffee. And here, this beautiful 17 (laughter) years of work starts with a cup of coffee.

STAMBERG: He used lots of found objects - a rusted¹⁰ wheelbarrow, a beat-up chair, cardboard boxes.

GOVAN: The bric-a-brac of the leftover¹¹ is the magic of his art because you have to think of art always of - it's always a transformation¹² of nothing to something.

STAMBERG: By the time he died in 2008, Rauschenberg had traveled around the world and took a tape recorder with him. Sounds he recorded are part of this artwork - a baby crying, elevator doors, a band saw. It's pretty quiet, though, at Panels 69 through 73 - a sculpture, sort of. Five high stacks of books, Florida Public Library discards, piled one on top of the other.

ZAVISTOVSKI: I love those books - fiction and science and math books.

GOVAN: They have a pole inside them, so they look like a huge, tall stack, taller than we are - much taller, like totems.

STAMBERG: Must have been fun piling up books. There's fun on lots of the panels, although Rauschenberg does show his worries, too - environmental damage, repression¹³, war. But you can see that it's joy that drives him. His self-portrait here is collaged with images of things he loved - baby shoes, avocados, a newborn duck, a piece of bread.

So you look at it. He says it's a self-portrait. You think, who is this guy? Who is this guy?

GOVAN: He's prolific¹⁴ in a joyful¹⁵ way, looking at everything in the world - a piece of trash, an odd juxtaposition¹⁶ of objects - and in it, he finds life.

STAMBERG: As a young man in the 1950s, Robert Rauschenberg was bothered by the prevailing¹⁷ idea, the hotshot abstract expressionist idea, that it took suffering and pain to produce important art. Rauschenberg disagreed. And with his life-affirming work, LACMA director Michael Govan says he made his mark.

GOVAN: For me, Rauschenberg is one of the most important artists of the century.

STAMBERG: The last century. And with his quarter-mile panels occupying nearly an entire floor of LACMA through early June, he strides into this century too. In Los Angeles, I'm Susan Stamberg.

1 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

2 unity   

n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调

参考例句：

• When we speak of unity,we do not mean unprincipled peace.所谓团结，并非一团和气。
• We must strengthen our unity in the face of powerful enemies.大敌当前，我们必须加强团结。

3 commute   

vi.乘车上下班；vt.减(刑)；折合；n.上下班交通

参考例句：

• I spend much less time on my commute to work now.我现在工作的往返时间要节省好多。
• Most office workers commute from the suburbs.很多公司的职员都是从郊外来上班的。

4 memoir   

n.[pl.]回忆录，自传；记事录

参考例句：

• He has just published a memoir in honour of his captain.他刚刚出了一本传记来纪念他的队长。
• In her memoir,the actress wrote about the bittersweet memories of her first love.在那个女演员的自传中，她写到了自己苦乐掺半的初恋。

5 collaged   

vt.拼贴（collage的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• The units are collaged together by a serial tectonic spatially and temporally. 这些构造单元是由构造原因，依一定的时空序列拼贴在一起的。 来自互联网

6 fabrics   

织物( fabric的名词复数 )； 布； 构造； （建筑物的）结构（如墙、地面、屋顶）：质地

参考例句：

• cotton fabrics and synthetics 棉织物与合成织物
• The fabrics are merchandised through a network of dealers. 通过经销网点销售纺织品。

7 checkered   

adj.有方格图案的

参考例句：

• The ground under the trees was checkered with sunlight and shade.林地光影交错。
• He’d had a checkered past in the government.他过去在政界浮沉。

8 tablecloths   

n.桌布，台布( tablecloth的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Champagne corks popped, and on lace tablecloths seven-course dinners were laid. 桌上铺着带装饰图案的网织的桌布，上面是七道菜的晚餐。 来自飘（部分）
• At the moment the cause of her concern was a pile of soiled tablecloths. 此刻她关心的事是一堆弄脏了的台布。 来自辞典例句

9 flattened   

[医]（水）平扁的，弄平的

参考例句：

• She flattened her nose and lips against the window. 她把鼻子和嘴唇紧贴着窗户。
• I flattened myself against the wall to let them pass. 我身体紧靠着墙让他们通过。

10 rusted   

v.（使）生锈( rust的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• I can't get these screws out; they've rusted in. 我无法取出这些螺丝，它们都锈住了。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• My bike has rusted and needs oil. 我的自行车生锈了，需要上油。 来自《简明英汉词典》

11 leftover   

n.剩货，残留物，剩饭；adj.残余的

参考例句：

• These narrow roads are a leftover from the days of horse-drawn carriages.这些小道是从马车时代沿用下来的。
• Wonder if that bakery lets us take leftover home.不知道那家糕饼店会不会让我们把卖剩的带回家。

12 transformation   

n.变化；改造；转变

参考例句：

• Going to college brought about a dramatic transformation in her outlook.上大学使她的观念发生了巨大的变化。
• He was struggling to make the transformation from single man to responsible husband.他正在努力使自己由单身汉变为可靠的丈夫。

13 repression   

n.镇压，抑制，抑压

参考例句：

• The repression of your true feelings is harmful to your health.压抑你的真实感情有害健康。
• This touched off a new storm against violent repression.这引起了反对暴力镇压的新风暴。

14 prolific   

adj.丰富的，大量的；多产的，富有创造力的

参考例句：

• She is a prolific writer of novels and short stories.她是一位多产的作家，写了很多小说和短篇故事。
• The last few pages of the document are prolific of mistakes.这个文件的最后几页错误很多。

15 joyful   

adj.欢乐的，令人欢欣的

参考例句：

• She was joyful of her good result of the scientific experiments.她为自己的科学实验取得好成果而高兴。
• They were singing and dancing to celebrate this joyful occasion.他们唱着、跳着庆祝这令人欢乐的时刻。

16 juxtaposition   

n.毗邻，并置，并列

参考例句：

• The juxtaposition of these two remarks was startling.这两句话连在一起使人听了震惊。
• It is the result of the juxtaposition of contrasting colors.这是并列对比色的结果。

17 prevailing   

adj.盛行的；占优势的；主要的

参考例句：

• She wears a fashionable hair style prevailing in the city.她的发型是这个城市流行的款式。
• This reflects attitudes and values prevailing in society.这反映了社会上盛行的态度和价值观。