Mule

'Mule' is part of the 'Hoarfrost editions', a group of nine prints on unstretched fabric that Robert Rauschenberg produced in 1974 in collaboration with the printmaking
workshop Gemini GEL in Los Angeles. Rauschenberg was inspired to make the series after seeing sheets of drying cheesecloth – used to clean printing stones and presses – hung in the studio. Fluttering in the breeze, the translucent fabrics retained faint impressions of images, remnants of history captured in ink stains.

Rauschenberg used a solvent transfer process to create the Hoarfrost editions, arranging crumpled newspapers, magazines, found images and paper bags on the bed of a printing press and spraying the materials with liquid to release the inks. Fabrics were laid on top of the paper and run through the printing press, transferring ink to textile. In 'Mule' Rauschenberg has printed on paper bags, muslin, cheesecloth and satin to create an assemblage of text and images.