Erasure as Creation: Robert Rauschenberg’s Erased de Kooning Drawing (1953)

Figure 1. Robert Rauschenberg, Erased de Kooning Drawing, 1953; traces of drawing media on paper with label and gilded frame (64.14 x 55.25 x 1.27 cm); Collection SFMOMA, purchase through a gift of Phyllis Wattis; © Robert Rauschenberg Foundation/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

The second hand can sometimes be an iconoclastic force, undoing the work of another in order to re-create something new. Testing the boundaries defining ‘art’, Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008) set out to discover if erasure, or the removal of marks, could constitute a work of art. At a time when the Abstract Expressionists were focused on the traces of the artist’s gesture (as seen in Jackson Pollock’s drip paintings), Rauschenberg was interested in the converse: a subtractive artistic gesture that removes all traces.

Artists commonly erase portions of their drawings in order to correct or alter, and sometimes even discard works they consider unsatisfactory, but there is the sense that they are allowed to do so because the artwork is their own. Thus, Rauschenberg found that erasing his own drawings was not a particularly transgressive gesture because he was simply undoing himself. Instead, he approached Willem de Kooning (1904-1997), asking him to donate a drawing to be obliterated. De Kooning complied, giving him a drawing in pencil, crayon and ink that would be particularly challenging to erase. Reportedly, it took Rauschenberg over a month to remove most of the marks from the paper. Faint traces of de Kooning’s hand remain as ghostly reminders of the drawing it might have been.

Rauschenberg’s performative act plays on the power of the original artwork and the requisite sense of loss that accompanies its destruction. He chose de Kooning because the older artist was someone he admired whose drawings were certain to be considered significant works of art. The act of erasure would forfeit its iconoclastic impact if the drawing was considered unimportant. Asked whether he would have done the same to a Rembrandt drawing, Rauschenberg reportedly replied that he would not. This suggests that he drew a distinction between an Old Master and a contemporary artist, whereby the former’s work was irreplaceable and therefore untouchable, whilst the latter was still producing drawings and thus fair game.

The result is not simply a blank piece of paper, but rather the material evidence of two distinct artistic actions, as the additive work of the first is undone by the subtractive second hand. The un-drawing is claimed by Rauschenberg as his own work of art, drawing attention to the fact that his contribution was one of unmaking. Its placement in a gilt frame forms an integral part of the work, signifying its status as art through conventional means that counteract its unusual genesis.

The significance of Rauschenberg’s erasure is left open to interpretation – was it an act of iconoclasm and Oedipal self-assertion or an act of creation and, as Rauschenberg once suggested, celebration?