Erased de Kooning

Are you familar with Robert Rauschenberg's work of art titled "Erased de Kooning"?

This, of course, is it:



If so, then great. If not, then this--straight, as we like to say, from horses mouth--is Bob Rauschenberg telling you more or less everything you need to know ... at least for our purposes.

[Brief aside: Key phrase @ 1:46: ... I bought a bottle of Jack Daniels and went upstairs ...]



All of which brings us to what is now being called "Barack 3 (Erased de Kooning)"--just one more instance of me putting myself into shoes I might not be able to fill but do so just so I can flop around in them, paint stick in one hand, bottle of Jack Daniels in the other, like a drunk kid in Gramma's attic, dreaming of bigger things.

The strategy is this: Fix the eye; fix the hairline; white out all the anotations but one; change the title from "Barack 3" to "Barack 3 (Erased de Kooning)" and call it a day. Might even be fun.

Now check this out:



Interesting crop. Almost stands on it's own. Almost worth duplicating on a larger level, just to stand on it's own. If you haven't been paying attention, it's the lower left hand corner of "Barack 3." The inscription reads "I wish my parents were alive to see this ... and I'm not even black!"

It's my favorite annotation on an otherwise erase-worthy collection of commentary.

Me? I'm all fired up.