Artist:

Rudolf Stingel

(Italian, born 1956)

Title:

Untitled,

1995

Medium:

oil on canvas

Size:

106.7 x 96.5 cm. (42 x 38 in.)

Price:

Price on Request

Markings:

Signed and dated 'Stingel 95' (on the reverse)

Provenance:

Paula Cooper, New York

Contact Gallery About This Work

Description:

Through his monochromatic canvases, Italian-born artist Rudolf Stingel challenges the definition of painting by forcing his audience to observe the techniques and process of creation. Stingel’s series of silver canvases, begun in the late 1980s, can be considered part of the Instruction Paintings, first exhibited in 1989 accompanied by an illustrated brochure in six languages laying out the method of production.

By publicising his creative process, Stingel seemingly invites the viewer to produce his or her own artwork, stripping away its mystique and questioning authorship. According to Stingel, the process of making an Instruction Painting is fairly straightforward: paint a canvas with a layer of oil paint, lay down a scrim of cloth, spray a layer of silver enamel and allow the paint to rest. Once the surface was set but still tacky, pull the cloth through, mixing the surfaces into a tempestuous ground. Although the process itself appeared simple, small variations at each step affected the ultimate outcome: everything from the creases in the cloth, to the drying time allowed, to the precise proportions of oil and enamel used. Consequently, the result could appear variously iridescent or matte; monochrome or multi-hued; textured in some places and smoother in others.

Thus, Stingel’s ‘Do It Yourself’ method of painting allows his viewers to imagine and to follow along with the painter’s creative process. Although Stingel moved away from traditional painting towards abstraction, his work reminds us of important art historical precedents: Lucio Fontana’s tagli, the slashed canvases; Yves Klein’s monochromes which ‘open a window to freedom’ through their purity; and Gerhard Richter’s Abstraktes, which, much like Stingel’s work, emerge organically through a process of layering. Like his predecessors, Stingel deconstructs the techniques of painting, and in Untitled, 1995, with its shining silver surfaces, Stingel gives us a work of sublime abstraction.

Price Database

Robilant+Voena

Rudolf Stingel

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Rudolf Stingel

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