Booster

Private collection.

Lithography, screen printing.

The full-size lithography consists of six x-rays against the background of dimmer images of several random objects and drawings. These are photographs of Robert Rauschenberg himself, so the artist considered the picture a self-portrait or “self-portrait of an inner man”. This work created by the method of lithography and screen printing was difficult to make since its size exceeded all ever known lithographs made in this way. The main idea of ​​the “self-portrait” was that, despite the exact reproduction of a person, it does not convey his characteristics and does not identify him. The name of this work came to the artist by accident when he saw a children’s drawing on the pavement depicting a boy with a rocket in his hands.