Contextual focus Point - Erased De Kooning Drawing and Stephen Marshall

Erased De Kooning drawing by Robert Rauschenberg. It's marketed as a blank sheet of paper but there are soft ghostly traces of the original. It's an artwork which requires you to stop and look and think, not something that you can just glance at and tick off as having seen it. There are parallels with Cornelia Parkers Room for Margins installation which must have been influenced by Rauschenberg. San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art made a digitally enhanced infra-red scan which is an interesting idea but maybe misses the whole point of the original? Robert Krulgich has an interesting explanation comparing the drawing to the "nothingness" of space which although it looks black and empty isn't nothingness at all.The importance and success of the drawing owes a lot to the story that Rauschenberg created around it and this was something that he was clearly very aware of embellishing the story as the years went on. Sarah Roberts essay discusses the history and mythology which surrounds it and her clear description and analysis make a lot of the discussions available online feel lightweight.

The success of the project depended on De Kooning as much as Rauschenberg, he played along with the game, not only by providing the original but but staying quiet as the story grew, and becoming involved giving intermittent soundbites to keep the ball rolling.

The course notes suggest that there are interviews online with both Rauschenberg and De Kooning but so far I have only managed to find this interview from the SFMOMA website. I have been watching this video which is rather long (I'm not good at just watching) and so far has just proved to me that Rauschenberg was very difficult to follow and understand when he was younger, I need to concentrate harder.

Overall I think that the Erased De Kooning is an interesting and novel concept presented in a clever way. It also appears to be unique, I haven't seen evidence of anyone copying the idea.

Stephen Marshall is a very difficult character to track down. (I wasted a lot of time chasing Steven Marshall who is only slightly less elusive) Stephen Marshall's website seems to just show one of two  a randomly chosen pictures. He has done a collaborative project with Tim Dodds which involved swapping drawings and working on each others work. The Saachi Gallery has a number of his works which seem to be characterised by having a three dimensional element, Glory Fruit Five Trees Penblwydd Hapus appears to fool the eye into thinking that you are looking into the angled board to create an illusion of three dimensions. The Dead Sea The Cool Mist Hikers Getting Hit by Lightning is a complex piece which I think needs to be seen in the flesh to be appreciated. Is this what the course notes mean about a fluidity of drawing? They look like enlarged sketchbook works which happen to have found their way into an exhibition. His work inhabits an area between figurative and abstraction there are ethnic influences and the work has a naive quality. I think it's a little too naive for my taste but I haven't seen it in real life so I'm not really qualified to comment. Of the work I can find I like No good boyo one two which is blessed with a mercifully short title compared to his other works. It's a lot simpler than the other paintings so it's easier to read as an online photo. I like the tension between the two figures, what are they about to do? what happens next?