harold rosenberg the tradition of the new pdf version

With great respect and trepidation, Rauschenberg approached de Kooning to ask for a drawing to erase with some reluctance and consternation, de Kooning consented. His first and only choice was Willem de Kooning (1904–1997), a painter at the apex of his powers who had recently reached the highest echelons of the New York art world. He became convinced that the only way to create a work of art through erasure would be to start with a drawing by an artist of universally recognized significance.

He had tried erasing one of his own drawings but found the results lacking. Rauschenberg’s usual account of Erased de Kooning Drawing’s origins begins with a simple challenge: he wanted to discover a way to make a drawing with an eraser. Though it is often discussed as a bombshell that detonated in the art world in 1953, the drawing in fact gained its reputation much more slowly, as critics and artists considered and reconsidered the implications of the odd, nearly unfathomable artistic choice central to its making. As Walter Hopps noted, a basic understanding of Erased de Kooning Drawing “is inextricably embedded in the viewer’s explicit knowledge of the process of making.” 1 This essay offers a perspective on the interrelatedness of the work’s creation story and its material conditions, and it reflects on the roles both factors played in establishing the drawing as a progenitor of Conceptualism. The story of how Erased de Kooning Drawing came into being is central to its reception and reputation, and cannot be separated from the work itself. The inscription, “ERASED DE KOONING DRAWING BY ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG 1953,” is the only toehold offered to those unfamiliar with this enigmatic artwork. At first inspection, its meaning and import are utterly opaque, impossible even to speculate upon.

A simple composition comprising a single sheet of smudged paper, a thin gold frame with a plain window mat, and a machine-precise inscription, Robert Rauschenberg’s Erased de Kooning Drawing blankly addresses the viewer.

Harold rosenberg the tradition of the new pdf version