- Museum number
- 2016,7071.1
- Title
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Object: Booster
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Series: Booster and 7 Studies
- Description
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Five x-ray plates arranged to form a full-size human skeleton, surrounded by a montage of imagery including a chair at the top left in a blue rectangle and two power drills at the centre right. Superimposed with a star chart in red. 1967
Colour lithograph and screenprint
- Production date
- 1967
- Dimensions
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Height: 1913 millimetres (Framed)
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Height: 1829 millimetres (sheet)
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Width: 1000 millimetres (Framed)
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Width: 902 millimetres
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Depth: 61 millimetres (Framed)
- $Inscriptions
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- Curator's comments
- Rauschenberg made this print in collaboration with Ken Tyler, then master printer at the print workshop Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles, in 1967. At the time, it was the largest lithograph to have been printed by hand. Conceived as a self-portrait, the print is dominated by a central life-sized x-ray negative of the artist (formed from five plates), naked but for his boots. In characteristic Rauschenberg style, the x-ray image is juxtaposed with seemingly unrelated imagery taken from various sources including newspaper photographs and advertisements. At the upper left there is an empty chair printed in blue. Other fragments of imagery depict vehicles, a pair of jet engines, people running and jumping, and a pair of power-drills. (All of this additional imagery features in the seven preceding studies, which complete the series 'Booster and 7 Studies'.) Superimposed onto the surface of the print in red is an astronomical chart for the 1967, the year the print was made. Printed from two stones in black and two aluminium plates in white and blue, with a screenprint in red enamel ink, 'Booster' was published by Gemini G.E.L. in an edition of just 38.
Text from Coppel, Daunt and Tallman, 'The American Dream: pop to the present', London: Thames and Hudson in association with the British Museum, 2017, cat. no. 45:
'Booster' is a life-sized self-portrait, a composition dominated by six lithographed X-rays of the artist’s body, extending 1.8 metres in height. Around the figure are clouds of sketchy photo transfers; a pair of jet engines hovers to the right of the hip. Overtop all this, intense, discrete colour is provided by a chair lithographed in blue and the sharp red screenprinted lines and coordinates of the artist’s star chart. This was Rauschenberg’s first project with master printer Ken Tyler’s new Los Angeles workshop, Gemini; a chance for artist and printer to redefine what a contemporary print might be in terms of scale, materials and methods. Neither saw any value in sticking to technologies and aesthetic priorities that predated the century. Compared to his work at ULAE, Booster is bigger, sharper, cooler and despite the subject matter, less personal in character. Rauschenberg valued both approaches and continued to work at both workshops almost until his death.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
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2017 9 Mar-18 Jun, London, BM, G30, The American Dream
2018 2 Jun-2 Sept, Paris, Fondation Custodia, The American Dream: pop to the present
2020-21 8 Oct-31 Jan, Madrid, La Caixa Forum, The American Dream: pop to the present
2021 2 Mar-13 Jun, Barcelona, La Caixa Forum, The American Dream: pop to the present
2021 13 Jul-14 Nov, Zaragoza, La Caixa Forum, The American Dream: pop to the present
- Acquisition date
- 2016
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 2016,7071.1