Untitled

Rudolf Stingel has consistently interrogated the idea of painting throughout his storied career. Highly conceptual in practice, his work often pushes the boundaries of the art form by employing non-traditional materials like Styrofoam, insulation, carpet, and other surfaces that are placed in conversation with the history of art. Untitled comes from a significant series that fully illustrates the artist’s conceptual vision. It is a particularly striking example of Stingel’s investigation into the painterly process, and its triptych format pushes the entire work into the realm of Modernist multi-panel abstractions and Medieval altarpieces. Visually impactful as it is, Untitled leverages deceptively simple materials to create a shimmering illusion of physical space on a two-dimensional field. The light and color change as the viewer shifts their stance, bringing more or less of the details into view. By stripping away any pretense, Stingel invites a more earnest exploration of the medium.

In 1987, Stingel began work on a continuous series of ‘silver paintings’ from which the present example is descended. The shimmering, abstract constructions are reflective and enthralling, with an innate ability to draw the viewer in for closer examination. Interested, as always, in the idea of painting and its boundaries, the artist published step-by-step Instructions in 1989 to dispel any mystery and essentially democratize his process. Works like Untitled are created with a series of straightforward directives to produce sumptuous surfaces that belie their humble origins. By using a spray gun to apply silver paint onto a primed canvas through a layer of folded, crumpled tulle, Stingel extracts the nuances of the cloth and its interaction with the media when it is removed. The result is a ghost image of the folded material marked indelibly on the reflective surface of the work. Lines and shapes appear that resemble rocky cliffs or crystalline structures under a microscope. However, these formations are not premeditated and instead rely on the viewer’s need to categorize abstract space. Relishing the inability to fully control the proceedings, the painter noted, “I am not the first one questioning the ‘fairy tale of the creativity of the artist’. It derived first and foremost from a feeling of honesty towards myself. The ‘instructions’ were a guide to calculate chance as a working method” (R. Stingel, quoted in “Shit, How Are You Going To Do This One?,” Flash Art, September 2013). Highlighting the materiality of the work over any pictorial decisions, Stingel makes paintings that speak about themselves.

Throughout his oeuvre, Stingel consistently references and extrapolates upon the history of art in order to reevaluate the past with the tools of the present. The final results are often visually disparate, but the overarching conceptual mode remains. The silver paintings share an affinity for monochromatic composition and an investigation of the surface that draws comparisons to European artists like Piero Manzoni and Yves Klein. However, Stingel’s work hinges less on the material seduction of the piece and instead veers closer to the methodical, calculated processes of Gerhard Richter’s abstractions or Andy Warhol’s silkscreens. As Reiner Zittl explained, “Stingel may be categorized in the group of artists who passionately pursue painterly effects that for the most part appear almost autonomously on the picture’s surface. The texture of the material’s surface is proof of its manufacture” (R. Zittl, “The Trickster,” in Rudolf Stingel, exh. cat., Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, 2007, p. 32). Highly versed in the various processes used by his forebearers and colleagues, Stingel mines this rich visual language in search of more salient connections between artist, artwork, and the world around them.