Rudolf Stingel
dal 12/10/2007 al 23/11/2007
Segnalato da
12/10/2007
Rudolf Stingel
Sadie Coles HQ (old location), London
The artist continues his exploration of the viewer's physical encounter with the artwork. Upsetting notions of authenticity and context, an imposing single three-panel painting re-imagines a famous modern masterpiece. It mimics the moment in which this work is seen for the first time, as an image in a library book, black and white.
Solo Show
For the inaugural show of the new gallery of
Sadie Coles HQ, at 69 South Audley Street,
renowned Italian artist Rudolf Stingel
continues his exploration of the viewer’s
physical encounter with the artwork.
Upsetting notions of authenticity and
context, an imposing single three-panel
painting re-imagines a famous modern
masterpiece. It mimics the moment in which
this work is seen for the first time, as an
image in a library book, black and white. In
keeping with the perceived disjuncture
between the real and the imagined, the
exact subject matter of the painting will be
revealed only when the show opens to the
public.
Currently the subject of a major survey show at the Whitney Museum of American
Art, New York, (until 14 October 2007), Stingel is celebrated for his rigorous and
critical approach to painting. Immersed in minimalist, conceptual, and performative
histories, Stingel’s use of a wide-range of everyday, unconventional materials such
as carpet, rubber and Styrofoam, consistently challenges the purity of the medium.
Of the exhibition at the Whitney Roberta Smith has written in the New York Times:
"For nearly 20 years [Rudolf Stingel] has made work that seduces the eye while
also upending most notions of what, exactly, constitutes a painting, how it should
be made and by whom."
Beginning and ending with one of Stingel’s installations of
aluminum-coated panels into which previous viewers had been invited to carve, the
Whitney’s show clearly traces his shift from early abstract monochromatic works
(from 1987), to more recent oversized, melancholic self-portraits that deal with
figuration and the translation of photography (from 2006). In its variety and ambition
Stingel’s practice insists on a constant and radical evaluation of both painting’s
limits and possibilities in which the viewer is complicit throughout.
Rudolf Stingel was born in 1956 in Merano, Italy. He lives and works in New York and Bolzano, Italy
and previously exhibited a series of gold wallpaper paintings at Sadie Coles HQ in 2004.
Opening 13 october 6-8pm
Sadie Coles HQ
South Audley Street, 69 London
Free admission