Erased de kooning drawing

#draft

Erased de Kooning Drawing,Robert Rauchenberg

Robert Rauchenberg asked William de Kooning, whom he held in great regard, for a drawing so that he could completely erase it. The resulting sheet of paper, mostly empty with a few stubborn smudges, now hangs in the San Francisco MoMA.

Rauchenberg was fond of recounting that de Kooning purposely chose a drawing that would be as hard as possible to fully erase. Even if it was easy, the material of this artwork is crucial to its (non)existence. The ash left over by burning million pounds sterling is different than the ash of a pile of junk mail.

Image generators cannot remove anything. They can make new images that look like existing images with elements removed. But the original de Kooning does not exist anymore. SF Moma took great pains to figure out what it had been, which just underscores the fact that this was an actual destruction, not the depiction of destruction. SF Moma’s website concludes:

The sight of this approximation of de Kooning’s drawing ultimately does not transform our understanding of Rauschenberg’s finished artwork. The power of Erased de Kooning Drawing derives from the allure of the unseen and from the enigmatic nature of Rauschenberg’s decision to erase a de Kooning.