Faculty Retirement: Art World Laments, Robert Rauschenberg dead at 82

-The New York Times is reporting today that american modernist master Robert Rauschenberg died Monday of heart failure. Rauschenberg was a contemporary of Marcel Duchamp and Jasper Johns, and with them, helped to continually question and redefine the nature of art.

-Rauschenberg was an artist of almost every conceivable medium, and Jasper Johns was quoted as saying that nobody had invented more in the way of artistic expression that Rauschenberg¹.

-Perhaps Rauschenberg's most memorable piece (and our favorite) is Erased De Kooning. The piece (below) was a originally a drawing by abstract expressionist pioneer Willem De Kooning, an idol of Rasuchenberg's. Rauschenberg asked De Kooning for a drawing, then spent nearly a year erasing the sketch, thereby creating a new and groundbreaking work of art. The sentiment of Erased De Kooning is one we feel strongly about: Honoring those who have come before us, but asserting a new and progressive vision.

-I just saw that Gawker had something to say about this too.


Erased De Kooning, 1950

Pilgrim, 1953

1-Paraphrased form the NYT article