What is Memory?

(NOTE: I have published a few earlier versions of this essay as the idea develops through time.)

Besides journalism, I’ve tried out a number of other careers for limited periods. During the years that my sidelight career was selling Robert Rauschenberg paintings, for example, (see below), I tried to catch up on my limited knowledge of abstract expressionist history.

Inevitably, I was drawn to Rauschenberg's "Erased de Kooning Drawing," an experiment about the limits of art.

At the time the two artists combined on the piece, 1953, I was being instructed to erase my own writings and drawings as a first-grader in school. At the time, we were told that we were to erase our "mistakes" as part of the process of learning how to write and draw correctly.

Rauschenberg, of course, had a very different purpose in mind when he asked Willem de Kooning to produce a drawing that he would erase. He sought to discover whether an artwork could be produced entirely through erasure— the removal of what was once there, sort of like creating a ghost.

It would not be a mistake at all, but an act entirely on purpose. And the result would be a work based only on the memory of what used to be. 

This is, after all, very similar to what happens in life on many occasions. It happens when we lose all of our possessions to fire, theft, loss or a conscious decision to eliminate them from the premises. It happens when we get dementia.

It also is what happens when somebody we love dies.

It is also what happens when autocrats try to erase history, criminals try to cover up crimes, or genocidal maniacs attempt to remove an entire people from the planet.

In the case of the actual erased de Kooning drawing, Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns carefully matted and framed the work, with Johns inscribing the following words below the now-obliterated piece:

"ERASED de KOONING DRAWING"
"ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG"
"1953"

The psychologically loaded history of the creation remains otherwise unknowable.

But as long as we remain aware of what happened, what was once drawn, and what was once seen, it is as real as we need it to be.

Just like our memories.

***

And this post from 2006:

Hurricanes have followed me around for years. My friend Gus is a contractor on Sanibel Island off of Florida's Gulf Coast. We got to know each other because both of us had daughters who were home schooling. After one big storm hit the islands, Gus drove around helping people do repairs and get their lives back in order. He did it in a neighborly kind of way, not for money or expecting to find clients.

One man he helped on Sanibel's sister island, Captiva, was named "Bob." He appreciated Gus's help so much he did become a client. "Bob" turned out to be Robert Rauschenberg, and over the next few years, as Gus built his seaside studio, the artist paid for his work not only with cash but with original paintings as well.

To make a very long story short, Gus called me and asked if knew anyone who might like to buy them. Now, don't get too excited, because over the next few years I only managed to sell three Rauschenbergs for Gus, but that helped him and his family make it through some pretty down years.

LINKS:

• Antony Blinken in Jerusalem: Urgent steps needed for calm (BBC)

• Blinken visit reaches new urgency as Israeli, Palestinian tensions boil (CNN)

• Blinken says U.S. will keep pressing Egypt on human rights (Reuters)

• Biden, McCarthy to discuss debt limit in talks on Wednesday (AP)

• Some Democrats are worried about Harris’s political prospects (WP)

• Meet the Man Who Brought You George Santos (New Yorker)

• Recent infighting raises the question: How conservative is the GOP? (NPR)

• When Americans Lost Faith in the News (New Yorker)

• Manhattan D.A. convenes grand jury to evaluate Trump role in hush money to adult film star, people with knowledge of investigation say (WP)

• Yellen ‘nervous’ about US defaulting on debt (The Hill)

• Ford Follows Tesla in Cutting Electric Vehicle Prices (NYT)

• What the mass tech layoffs mean for the U.S. economy (WP)

• Is the bubble bursting for tech workers? (CNBC)

• Chinese internet search major Baidu is planning to launch an artificial intelligence chatbot service similar to OpenAI's ChatGPT in March. (Reuters)

• US renewable energy farms outstrip 99% of coal plants economically – study (Guardian)

• Black Memphis police spark dialogue on systemic racism in the U.S. (WP)

• A Telegram group called Dissident Homeschool has been a resource for neo-Nazis who want to teach their kids hate at home. Now its administrators have been unmasked, HuffPost's Christopher Matthias reports. Printable copywork assignments available for parents on the group make children learn cursive by writing out quotes from Adolf Hitler. [HuffPost]

• Three-Way U.S. Chip Alliance Should Spook Beijing (WSJ)

• Health authorities in China's southwestern province of Sichuan will allow unmarried individuals to raise a familyand enjoy benefits reserved for married couples, in the latest effort to bolster a falling birth rate. (Reuters)

• Mongolia reels from impact of Russian sanctions (Financial Times)

• Very Dangerous People’: Russia’s Convict Fighters Are Heading Home (NYT)

• Ukraine is relying on Soviet-era tanks to hold the line until Western reinforcements arrive (CNN)

• Russia and Ukraine Battle for Control of Villages Near the Key City of Bakhmut (NYT)

• Russian forces claimed incremental gains in eastern Ukraine adding up to their biggest advances in months. (Reuters)

• Top Taliban Leaders Consider Deposing Supremo Akhundzada Over Afghan Women’s Education (News18)

• Vast Maya Kingdom Is Revealed in Guatemalan Jungle (WSJ)

• Utah Bans Transition Care for Transgender Youth (NYT)

• Lightning Strikes Create a Strange Form of Crystal Rarely Seen in Nature (ScienceAlert)

• Back from extinction: Resurrecting the Tasmanian tiger (Al Jazeera)

• Surprising Findings: New Analysis Reveals the Secrets of Dinosaur Diets (SciTechDaily)

• Woman Who Had Almost Formed Healthy Sense Of Self Rejoins Social Media (The Onion)