Mostly About Rauschenberg

Mostly About Rauschenberg is an unfinished, mostly unreleased documentary about artist Robert Rauschenberg.

• 45 - 50 minutes
• 16mm
• 7 minute excerpt on Vimeo

Crew

Directors:

• Christine Kozlov
• Robert Rauschenberg
• Mayo Thompson

Original director:

• Jacques Clement

Producers:

• Reiner Moritz
• Michèle Arnaud

Production companies:

• RM Productions, Munich
• Technisonor, Paris

Screenings

	Date	City	Notes
	1975-09	Venice	Premiere
	2008-06-02	Munich	Source (unverified)

Sources

• We worked on a version of a biography of, you know, one of those art documentaries about him. There was a company in France making a film about him and the director was a guy named ClŽmente whose brother was this actor in Belle du Jour, you know, the one with the golden teeth. Anyway, Mr. ClŽmente started this film and Bob wouldn’t let it go out as it sat. And there was some discussion: Well, what do we do? And he said, Do you know anybody who can film because maybe we can do some more parts? And I said, Well, I had some background in film when I was in college: We used to make movies and shit like that. So we rented a movie camera and started shootin’ film with Bob reading his aphorisms, like, The only value of a good idea is that it’s an excuse to work. Stuff like that. Anyway, we cut our version of the film together and played it in Venice, but it never was released. It was handed on to somebody else, who then made another edit and then another edit. I think it finally came out, but I never saw the end one. I have a version of the one we made on VHS.
• Do you think that it will go out for release?
• I doubt it. That’s one of them business things. And Bob is involved in big business at the level he operates. So you have to be extremely circumspect about these things. But on the other hand, maybe the attitude toward copyright will change to some extent, and then the attitude could maybe accommodate a view of it as just information. If it is seen as missing information, and therefore it would be valid for it to be considered just as some more information about the same thing. We’ll see.

Mayo Thompson Records Nature on the Rauschenberg Estate

Mayo Thompson Records Nature on the Rauschenberg Estate is German radio program directed by Karl Bruckmaier for Bayerischer Rundfunk. First airing July 9, 1994, it showcases some of Mayo Thompson's field recordings for Mostly About Rauschenberg and provides commentary on them in the context of the recordings as "readytapes".

No.	Title	Length
1.	"Mosquito & Crows"
2.	"Attraction"
3.	"Call Me Horse"
4.	"I Don't Care"
Total length:		9:15