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Lot Essay
Including: Rotary Drive; Collateral; Banco; Retreat; Storyline; Leasee; Dream Cycle; Epic; Waiver; Back-Up and Intermission
In 1996, the director of Universal Limited Art Editions, Bill Goldston, approached Rauschenberg with the possibility of producing prints using solvent-transfer, a photographic technique that involves brushing developer fluid directly onto a printing matrix. Rauschenberg combined the solvent-transfer technique with photogravure and intaglio processes to create the eleven images in Ground Rules. While the prints are characteristic of Rauschenberg’s photo-collages and montages of recycled imagery, here, as a result of the fluid solvent-transfer process, images dissolve into each other with the wavering edges of brushstrokes. At the same time, the vivid palette divides these images into discrete patches, rendered in translucent greens, blues, and oranges. The vibrancy of the series’ color scheme is matched by the international focus of the photographic collages, which include images of a Tibetan monk, an elephant sleeping in a mudhole, and a Vive Zapata poster.
“One of the most exciting things for me is that I'm more or less painting with light. So the process begins with me by taking the photograph, selecting it for the series, and then projecting it onto the photosensitized plastic. Then going into the darkroom, and bringing it up with the developer…and then taking the rough material after it has been printed and processed, with proofs, assembling it, and assigning colors. From the moment that I take the photograph until Bill is finished is an adventure, subject to decision, indecision, and final results.” –Robert Rauschenberg.
In 1996, the director of Universal Limited Art Editions, Bill Goldston, approached Rauschenberg with the possibility of producing prints using solvent-transfer, a photographic technique that involves brushing developer fluid directly onto a printing matrix. Rauschenberg combined the solvent-transfer technique with photogravure and intaglio processes to create the eleven images in Ground Rules. While the prints are characteristic of Rauschenberg’s photo-collages and montages of recycled imagery, here, as a result of the fluid solvent-transfer process, images dissolve into each other with the wavering edges of brushstrokes. At the same time, the vivid palette divides these images into discrete patches, rendered in translucent greens, blues, and oranges. The vibrancy of the series’ color scheme is matched by the international focus of the photographic collages, which include images of a Tibetan monk, an elephant sleeping in a mudhole, and a Vive Zapata poster.
“One of the most exciting things for me is that I'm more or less painting with light. So the process begins with me by taking the photograph, selecting it for the series, and then projecting it onto the photosensitized plastic. Then going into the darkroom, and bringing it up with the developer…and then taking the rough material after it has been printed and processed, with proofs, assembling it, and assigning colors. From the moment that I take the photograph until Bill is finished is an adventure, subject to decision, indecision, and final results.” –Robert Rauschenberg.