There are some pretty interesting shenanigans that went on during the dada period of art history. I think was during dada, I know they did some pretty weird things. I would like to take a look at one incident that went down into art history and stuck. Now we are talking about famous people here people well known in the art world, not just some school boy. One of the artists, Robert Rauschenberg, asked Willem deKooning if he could have one of his pencil drawings to erase. Willem deKooning was reluctant to give it to him, but did so. Rauschenberg laboriously erased the whole thing, framed it and labeled it with his name. Now I have seen this piece and it IS erased. You can see some very faint lines where the pencil drawing was.

Here is part of an article as quoted from San Francisco Moma (Museum of Modern Art). If you want to see the piece, google Rauschenberg’s erased art.

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. Was it an act of homage, provocation, humor, patricide, destruction, or, as Rauschenberg once suggested, celebration? Erased de Kooning Drawing eludes easy answers, its mysterious beginnings leaving it open to a range of present and future interpretations.

Have you heard of this incident in Art history? What do you think about eradicating someone else’s art work for the experience of eradicating it? When you figure this out, would you please give your answer so we can add it to the annals of speculation and interpretation.

The Art world gets weird sometimes, not to mention the folks in it!