In his 1983 essay, “The Real Experiment,” Alan Kaprow describes the perpetual conflict between art and life, quoting Robert Rauschenberg:
“Painting is related to art and life. Neither can be made. (I try to act in that gap between the two)” (201).
For Kaprow, lifelike art is connected to life and everything else–it is art in the service of life.
See Alan Kaprow, “The Real Experiment,” Essays on the Blurring of Art and Life, Jeff Kelley, ed. pp. 201-218. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2003.
Research as Art 