The final frontier, as a setting, has long channeled giddy dreams of human communion. A new group of cultural works explores the opposite possibility.

I’ve been drawing aesthetic similarities between space exploration and baroque decor for a larger project, and looking at the political parallels as well—as tools of persuasion to promote power and faithful cooperation.

This series of lithographs, printed at Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles, was inspired by the launch of spaceflight Apollo 11, to which Rauschenberg was invited to attend. The imagery was derived from photographs supplied by NASA, as well as drawings made directly on the lithography stones by the artist using water-based tusche and crayon.