One of Rauschenberg’s most successful collaborations was with the Gemini GEL print workshop – a printmaking partnership that permanently changed the terrain of American printmaking. Printer Kenneth Tyler was a masterful facilitator for Rauschenberg’s ambitious project and their collaboration radically altered the possibilities of printmaking by combining lithography and screenprinting in a new type of ‘hybrid’ print. The rules governing the size of lithographic printmaking were ignored, and at the time of its creation, Booster stood as the largest and most technically sophisticated print ever produced. Today, Booster remains one of the most significant prints of the 20th century, a watershed that catapulted printmaking into a new era of experimentation.
Text © National Gallery of Australia, Canberra 2010