Since the 1950s, the American artist Robert Rauschenberg has decisively expanded his concept of art by redefining the boundaries of the known and thinkable through his joy of experimentation. In addition to his early "Combines", works known for their combination of three-dimensional objects and painting, his "Silkscreen Paintings" are also considered important products of a new understanding of art. Their genesis goes back to a visit of Robert Rauschenberg at Andy Warhol's studio in New York in 1962, where he observed how photographs were transferred onto canvases using the silkscreen printing method. He was so fascinated by this technique that he decided to adapt it making a first group of works that drew on images from various magazines such as National Geographic and The Esquire from 1962 to 1964. Rauschenberg then reworked the images that had been transferred onto the canvas with oil paint so that only individual sections of the magazine images remained visible. The actual clippings continue to exist, but they are shifted into a new context through the artistic intervention.

The "Urban Bourbon" series from between 1988 and 1996, the name has is origin in an anecdote, is ultimately also based on this method. Thus, the use of "Bourbon" is said to go back to an encounter with Willem de Kooning at an early stage of Rauschenberg's artistic career in 1953, when the latter asked the then star of Abstract Expressionism for permission to erase his works. The result, Rauschenberg's "Erased de Kooning Drawing," made the then 27-year-old suddenly famous. As a sign of appreciation for his cooperation, he gave Willem de Kooning a bottle of Jack Daniel's. "Urban", the first word in the name of the work series, does not only rhyme with the above mentioned addition, for which Rauschenberg had a liking, it might also refer to a method from the 1950s characterized by the integration of objects from an urban environment into his works. Here, however, different types of metal are used as image carrier, which have been used instead of a canvas since the 1980s. Between 1985 and 1995 alone, the highly productive artist created numerous series of works on metal image carriers like brass, aluminum or copper, and experimented with the chemical reactions of industrially produced metal. This method is clearly recognizable in "Holy Lattice" from 1988, where Rauschenberg also added his artistic signature to the pictorial structure by contrasting the machine-reproduced images with unusually delicate, gestural painting thus confronting us with a complex structure of visual stimuli.
In the 1980s, Robert Rauchenberg increasingly used his own experience for his artistic creations. In "Holy Lattice", for example, he used black-and-white photographs taken during, among others, the ROCI (Rauschenberg Overseas Culture Interchange) project in Chile and Cuba in 1984 and 1987 . They are transferred into color, strongly reminiscent of the national flags of the two countries, both of which once fought for their independence from Spain. They are then transferred to aluminum in a collage-like arrangement. The work is dominated by Jesus on the Cross (Chile), complemented by images of an elephant under palm trees (unknown place of origin), as well as close-up views of a tree (Cuba) and a fire hydrant (Cuba). The orange lines printed across the cross reveal a female figure with large earrings, a bone in her hair, and a portable radio in her hand, a kind of indigenous pop figure, an image Rauschenberg came across in the streets in Chile. The selection of images, random at first sight, turns out a "polyphonic network of formal, iconographic, and political cross-references" (Ingo F. Walther (ed.), Karl Ruhrberg, Kunst des 20. Jahrhunderts, vol. I, Cologne 2005) typical of Rauschenberg on closer inspection. They can be narrowed down to the themes religion, nature and people, and must be understood in context of the ROCI project, an international project for which Rauschenberg traveled the world between 1984 and 1991 with the goal of promoting international understanding through cultural exchange. The images selected for "Holy Lattice" provide insight into the socio-political conditions of these countries, show excerpts of daily life subject to current changes, allow nature to collide with man-made infrastructure, and merge Christian iconography with cultural stereotypes. This way Rauschenberg dcreates a dense network of connecting points supplemented by his own imprints and experiences and allows for a variety of interpretations.

The title "Holy Lattice" must also be understood in close connection with the content of the work. Not only does it take over part of the English term "Holy Cross" and establish a reference to the main religious motif. The second part, "Lattice", also finds its echo in the grid-like structure, the orange lines and the vertical line of the cross, thus Rauschenberg draws a line between visual content and title. A constant game with an almost endless abundance of associative levels begins, which provide a thematic direction, but avoid concrete definition. Not only technically, with a recourse to the method of "Silkscreen Paintings," but also in terms of content, "Holy Lattice" from the "Urban Bourbon" series thus is a prime example of Robert Rauschenberg's ability to create new, previously unknown associative spaces through the transformation of reality. "I want to wake people up," Rauschenberg once said, "I want people to look at the material and react to it. I want to make them aware of their individual responsibility, both for themselves and for the rest of humanity." [AR]