Shadowing Rosalind Krauss ... or is it Rauschenberg?

Rosalind Krauss begins her article "Perpetual Inventory" (October, Vol. 88, Spring 1999, pp. 86-116) with a headnote referring to its title, from a remark Robert Rauschenberg made to Barbara Rose: "I went in for my interview for this fantastic job .... The job had a great name -- I might use it for a painting -- 'Perpetual Inventory.'" And I immediately began to think that, yes, everything gets counted in ... and I thought, that's a really intriguing way to think of painting, as checking into the mind for what is important, how it presents itself in the imagination, what, then, it would be possible to re-present and then working onto canvas with a concerted effort.  Later, speaking of Rauschenberg's photograph-laden silscreens in the early 60's, Krauss contrasts his approach, which is something of "a chance cut from the ongoing fabric of the whole world" with the art of a Renaissance painting, "a contraction around a gravitational center" (95). Voila. Brilliant.

So I thought that, for me, the two worlds could, instead of contrasting, converge. What if you had both a contraction and an explosion ... something like the Queen's Skirt series I have been thinking of ... the surface of the painting would be terribly active and the work itself a real challenge. So off I go.