7 Characters (1982)

Rauschenberg created this series of collages featuring Chinese characters in collaboration with papermakers from the Xuan Paper Mill in Jingxian, China. To make the works, he adhered Chinese characters in paper pulp relief to a layer of silk, which in turn was mounted on a base of thirty-ply paper. Images from posters found in Shanghai were attached and overlaid with a thin transparent paper. The artist then applied gold leaf and a cloth medallion, cut from embroidered fabric, to each work. Each of the seven characters is an edition of approximately seventy unique variations. In each case, some images repeat in the same position while other elements are unique to just one work. Published by Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles, two impressions of each of the seven titles were included in the ROCI CHINA exhibition held at the National Art Museum of China in Beijing in 1985; the pairing emphasized the variations that make each collage distinct.