high concept

How to make a name for oneself in the art world? Every up-and-coming artist has to face that intimidating question in one way or another, but Robert Rauschenberg, now remembered as a leading light of the pop art movement, came up with a particularly memorable answer. When in 1953 he got the counterintuitive idea to make a drawing not by drawing, but by erasing, he at first tried erasing images he'd drawn himself. This brought him to the realization that not only should his erasing constitute more than half the process — "I wanted it to be the whole,” he later said — but that, to make a real artistic impact, he'd have to erase the work of someone important.--CM

The Human Eraser.


TS