(Port Arthur/Texas 1925–2008 Captiva Island/Florida)
Untitled, 1988, signed Rauschenberg 88, signed on the reverse Gorgoni, acrylic and solvent transfer on enlarged photograph by Gianfranco Gorgoni, printed on canvas, 185 x 322 cm

Provenance:
Gianfranco Gorgoni Studio, New York, until 1989
Galleria Barbierato Arte Contemporanea, Asiago
European Private Collection

Exhibited:
New York, Altered Images, The Penson Gallery, 1988, cat. no. 26
Modena, Storie dell’occhio/2-Gianfranco Gorgoni, Galleria Civica di Modena, Palazzina dei Giardini pubblici, July/September 1989, cat. no. 23
Asiago, L’Idea e l’Oggetto (curated by Elena Pontiggia), Galleria Barbierato Arte Contemporanea, 1991
Vicenza, L’Arte del XX secolo nelle collezioni private vicentine, Basilica Palladiana,1998, curated by Luca Massimo Barbero, cat. p. 197, no. 132 ill.
Washington D. C., Collettiva 1, Marnin Art Gallery, June/August 2003

Literature:
“Capolavori in corso” in KING no. 64, June 1993

In the late ‚60s, the magazine L‘Espresso commissioned to the young photographer Gianfranco Gorgoni a reportage on American Pop Art. Gorgoni met the gallerist Leo Castelli and by his support he will get in touch with all the artists of the gallery and, later, with many other artists of the American and European scene as well.

From this moment, Gorgoni collects an extraordinary gallery of portraits of artists. Upon this gallery, twenty years later, the photographer developed the idea of inviting the artists to work on their own image.

Chia, Christo, Haring, Kosuth, Lichtenstein, Longo, Mattiacci, Merz, Paladino, Rauschenberg, Salle, Scharf enthusiastically joined the project, and in December 1988 their works were shown in a legendary exhibition, „Altered Images“ at The Penson Gallery in New York.

This painting can be seen as a collaborative work done by Robert Rauschenberg and the photographer Gianfranco Gorgoni. The image of Mr. Rauschenberg on which this painting is based was taken in Ahmedabad, India in 1975

„ The one thing that has been consistent about my work is that there has been an attempt to use the very last minutes in my life and the particular location as the source of energy and inspiration, rather than retiring to some kind of other time, or dream, or idealism.“
Robert Rauschenberg as quoted in Robert Rauschenberg Transfer Drawings from 1960’s, exhib. Cat., New York, 2007