Beschreibung:

Rudolf Stingel Untitled 2004 polystyrene, oil and varnish on canvas 50.5 x 50.5 cm (19 7/8 x 19 7/8 in.) Signed and dated 'Stingel 04' on the reverse.
Provenance Massimo De Carlo, Milan Phillips, London, Contemporary Art Day Sale, 15 February 2013, lot 115 Acquired at the above sale by the present owner Catalogue Essay “I wouldn’t know where to say intervention stops and destruction begins.” Rudolf Stingel Thick viscous matter appears to bubble and congeal like lava erupting to the surface of Untitled (2004). The heavily encrusted quality of Rudolf Stingel’s polystyrene, oil and varnish work presented here is an emphatic illustration of the artist’s fascination with texture, gesture, abstraction and the role of the artist himself. Since the 1980s, Stingel has explored these aspects in a journey which has questioned the modes of painting and the engagement of the viewer. In this sense, he has examined preconceived notions of hierarchy within the process of creating. Often incorporating unlikely materials, Stingel’s works have broadly ranged from detailed self-portraits to techniques that offer minimal artistic control thus maximising spontaneity and unpredictability. This visually eclectic canon of work is perhaps best summarised by the curator Francesco Bonami who observes: “the mere act of painting does not create a painting but simply some painting. But if the action of painting is used as a lens to observe reality to create another reality, then we have a painting…Stingel creates a transitive way to recede from abstraction into the subject and to push the subject into a different kind of time.” (Francesco Bonami ed., Paintings of Paintings for Paintings, The Kairology and Kronology of Rudolf Stingel Rudolf Stingel London, 2007, pp. 13-14). Read More Artist Bio Rudolf Stingel Italian • 1956 New York-based Italian artist Rudolf Stingel was first recognized in the late 1980s for his singular conceptual approach to painting. He constantly questions the function, utility and limits of the medium through hyper-detailed stencil work and by way of a lavish bourgeois aesthetic thrown onto bordered surfaces. Borrowing from the Baroque, Stingel sets up a visual landscape from which the viewer expects excess, but that quickly destabilizes the field of vision by creating a perfectly contained work of traditional beauty. In effort to push the effect of painting to its limits, Stingel notoriously challenges questions of authorship by using various materials, including carpet, styrofoam and silver sheets, to recontextualize surface, depth and color. View More Works