Artist created an unerasable legacy
On the eve of the opening of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s “Robert Rauschenberg: Erasing the Rules” retrospective, supporters gathered at the museum to pay homage to the art, to the artist and to the woman instrumental in bringing some of the major works to the museum, which owns about 90 Rauschenbergs. “In honor of her generosity,” museum director Neal Benezra said of Phyllis Wattis, “we dedicate this exhibit to her memory.”
In an onstage conversation with cocurators Gary Garrels and Sarah Roberts, Benezra observed that before the word “disruption” was so widely used, Rauschenberg was a disrupter. The artist’s 1953 work, “Erased de Kooning Drawing,” was made with a drawing Willem de Kooning had given him for that purpose. Benezra described Rauschenberg’s erasing of the work as “an audacious act ... a seedbed for so much of what other artists have done.” (In an interview on SFMOMA’s website, the artist describes buying a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and approaching de Kooning to ask him for a work. De Kooning didn’t like the project at first, but finally gave in, saying he’d make it as hard as he could for Rauschenberg to erase it. “It took me about a month,” said Rauschenberg, who used so many erasers he couldn’t recall the number.
When Garrels learned that Rauschenberg might be willing to sell the “Erased” work, “I went to see Phyllis and told her. Her eyes lit up, and she said, ‘Now that’d be worth a detour.’ ... She was interested in what was new.”
Onstage, the three stressed that Rauschenberg was collaborative, and it was a way “he went out into the world,” said Benezra. The director seemed excited to confide that he’d just received word from staff members who had X-rayed one of his paintings; there is a possibility it was painted on top of a painting by his friend, Cy Twombly.
Rauschenberg had other means of absorbing the world outside the studio. “Always, he was a night person,” said his son, photographer Christopher
Rauschenberg, “He would get up in the late morning or early afternoon, look at his correspondence,” turn on the TV and sit in front of it. “He didn’t watch. But it was an electronic window for him.” Early afternoon, he watched soap operas. “On weekends, he would switch over to the Food Network. He was a foodie before everyone else . ... He didn’t want to go into solitary confinement. He had a voracious appetite for the whole world.”
Roberts confirmed that the TV was always on when Rauschenberg was making art.
“He would be working, and people would be having a party, and drinking and talking in his studio.” And despite all that commotion, and all that talk, she said, “the next morning, he would remember everything everyone had said.”
Mark Simon forwarded Will Durst’s Facebook notice: “... Need some help. The Big Fat Year End Kiss Off Comedy Show XXV (Dec. 26-Jan. 7) lost a venue because we told some politically incorrect jokes last year in a city who shall not be named (Berkeley). So this year, we’re putting up a board to greet audiences as they enter each of our (13) tour theaters that lists the trigger warnings our show may induce. Got any ideas? Funny is always good.” Among the suggestions, this from K.D.: “If offended easily, please just shut up and look pretty.”
Durst says that the complainers at the Berkeley venue were volunteers there. This 25th anniversary tour won’t have a stop in Berkeley.
Responding to the North Bay fires, The Chronicle’s Lois Kazakoff commissioned Benicia videographer John Beck to make a short video about the effects of the fires on farmworkers. “Forgotten Fire Victims,” a 6-minute film, was shown on The Chronicle website and Facebook page. A North Bay owner of theaters saw it and asked if he could run it before movie showings, and that spread to an array of North Bay venues. The filmmaker has added a notice at the end inviting viewers to contribute to http://undocufund.org.
Along the Embarcadero, Peter Drachsler saw a German shepherd carrying a skateboard in its mouth, accompanying a young man. Every few feet the dog would drop the board and the young man would jump on it and ride ... then get off and the dog would pick it up, and so on and so on.