White Painting (1951) by Robert Rauschenberg (1925–2008) predates John Cage’s best-known romance with silence in 4´33˝ and Paik’s Zen for Film. “Offhand, you might say that all three actions are the same. But they are quite different,” Cage wrote in referring to Rauschenberg’s work, Paik’s, and his own. “Nam June Paik’s film, which has no images on it, the room is darkened, the film is projected, and what you see is the dust that has collected on the film. I think that’s somewhat similar to the case of the Rauschenberg painting, though the focus is more intense” (Kostelanetz, 2005). White Painting consists of five modular canvases of one-, two-, three-, four-, and seven-panel groupings painted entirely white. Despite the absence of imagery, Rauschenberg maintained that each of these paintings functions as a hypersensitive picture plane that reflect changes in its surroundings. “A canvas—according to him—is never empty” (Joseph, 2003). Offering an instruction on the basis of which the paintings could be refabricated, Rauschenberg opened White Painting to reiterations, but certain originals are preserved and carry traces of their deterioration. This phenomenon addresses the tension between the potential of remaking contradicted by the urge to preserve material objects, as exemplified also by Zen for Film. —LH

Image: Photograph by Allan Grant / The LIFE Picture Collection / Getty Images.