The Flamingo Capsule

Mediums: oil, canvas, aluminized Mylar.
Location: The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (the USA).

The artist created this painting aiming to honour the memory of astronauts who tragically died in the fire of 1967 during the training flight of Apollo I. “The Flamingo Capsule” shows fire in an enclosed space and expresses all the horror of what had happened with the help of symbolic objects, which Rosenquist placed in the painting. The objects floating in the “capsule” are a crumpled spacesuit, a fragment of the American flag and a deformed food bag. On the sides, the artist added rectangular inserts made of a polyester film, a thin but durable modern material that was used to make the protective layer of the spacecraft.