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拍品专文
Robert Rauschenberg's Booster, from Booster and 7 Studies, broke new ground in many regards. In many ways, Rauschenberg and his collaborator, Kenneth Tyler, signaled a significant shift in the history of printmaking by executing a work on the scale of painting. Furthermore, it was one of the most technically ambitious works attempted by 1967. Rauschenberg did not set out to make this pivotal work upon arriving at the print workshop. Later, when interviewed about Booster, he recalled, "I remember being in Los Angeles at the Grinsteins' [co-owner of Gemini G.E.L.], without an idea in my headMy idea came from nowhere. I said, "I am going to make a self-portrait.""
Rauschenberg rarely made his prints self-referential. To create the center subject of the print, he posed nude (except for his boots) for a set of x-rays. The negative was transferred in full scale to a series of lithographic stones. Therefore, the work is on a life-sized scale. Rauschenberg also added images of elements appropriated from his daily life. These include scenes from newspapers to an astrological chart. By including these elements, he gives the viewer obscure nonsensical details about his life.
By keep the x-rays to full scale, Rauschenberg and Tyler created the largest work ever printed on a hand-operated lithographic press at that time. While this was a monumental achievement, it had greater ramifications to the course of printmaking. Previously and with only a few exceptions, most prints were made on an intimate scale. Beginning in the 1960s though, at a time later coined the Print Renaissance, artists and printer began to challenge this inherited notion of graphics. Tyler, especially, sought to create prints that rivaled the scale, presence, and power of paintings. After Rauschenberg's Booster, artists such as Claes Oldenburg, Helen Frankenthaler, Roy Lichtenstein, and Frank Stella further explored issued of scale and technical capabilities in printmaking.
Rauschenberg rarely made his prints self-referential. To create the center subject of the print, he posed nude (except for his boots) for a set of x-rays. The negative was transferred in full scale to a series of lithographic stones. Therefore, the work is on a life-sized scale. Rauschenberg also added images of elements appropriated from his daily life. These include scenes from newspapers to an astrological chart. By including these elements, he gives the viewer obscure nonsensical details about his life.
By keep the x-rays to full scale, Rauschenberg and Tyler created the largest work ever printed on a hand-operated lithographic press at that time. While this was a monumental achievement, it had greater ramifications to the course of printmaking. Previously and with only a few exceptions, most prints were made on an intimate scale. Beginning in the 1960s though, at a time later coined the Print Renaissance, artists and printer began to challenge this inherited notion of graphics. Tyler, especially, sought to create prints that rivaled the scale, presence, and power of paintings. After Rauschenberg's Booster, artists such as Claes Oldenburg, Helen Frankenthaler, Roy Lichtenstein, and Frank Stella further explored issued of scale and technical capabilities in printmaking.