Blurred drawing of de Kooning

The Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco (the USA).

A sheet of white paper with an erased image in a gilded frame.

At the beginning of his creative career, Robert Rauschenberg sought to expand the boundaries of art and destroy the stereotypes that reigned in it. The “victim” of these goals was a pencil drawing by famous Abstract Expressionist Willem de Kooning, which the artist erased, so that only barely visible marks of the pencil remained on paper. Rauschenberg inserted his creation into a thin golden frame and presented to the audience, who had to decide whether the erased image is still a work of art or not. The author personally asked for a drawing from Willem de Cunning, who reluctantly but agreed to this experiment.