"The goat had a goatee, horns, and a long-haired silver torso. Its head and neck were streaked with several colors of paint, as though it had put on makeup while drunk. Not only that-there was a black-and-white rubber tire around its middle. Standing before the goat, I felt as if I were having the worst or best possible dream, and, to steady myself, I read the wall label."
"(I learned later that, in his twenties, he'd changed his name from Milton to Robert, because he liked the approachable sound of "Bob.") Who was this man? And what did the word "monogram" mean in this context, or in any context? I remember perspiring, not because the museum was too hot but because something was happening to me: an aesthetic experience I did not understand was changing my body temperature, changing my mind."
The narrator frequented the Museum of Modern Art in the mid-1970s while attending the High School for Performing Arts near West Forty-sixth Street and living in Brooklyn. Visits included Manhattan landmarks such as the Gotham Book Mart and encounters with various art forms. A pivotal experience occurred upon seeing Robert Rauschenberg's Monogram: a stuffed goat with painted streaks, long silver hair, and a black-and-white rubber tire around its middle. The work produced a visceral, destabilizing reaction that altered body temperature and perception. The narrator later learned that Rauschenberg had changed his name from Milton to Robert in his twenties.
Read at The New Yorker
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