From syntax to ego to erasing Rauschenberg
Whoa, wikipedia’s bracket illustration totally brought to mind de Kooning’s Woman series, in which the female figure is broken into a kind of provocatively aggressive male syntax. This post is not an invitation to the feminist angle, however called for, as the gestural implications are obvious; this just got me thinking about “Erased de Kooning Drawing,” (1953) by Robert Rauschenberg, who, then a young artist, asked the patriarch if he could erase one of the latter’s drawings, who, in the spirit that marks a great man, said yes. The result is beautiful on all counts, and proves that ego is never destroyed, only transferred from one artist to another. I see my surname in his, so in the spirit of self-abnegation, Mr. Rauschenberg, I ask if I may erase you?