Rudolf Stingel, Untitled (#4), 1989
Oil and enamel on black and white photograph
Image size: 7 5/8 x 9 5/8 inches
Frame size: 18 1/2 x 14 1/4 inches
February 20 – March 21, 2009
Paula Cooper Gallery presents an exhibition of new work by internationally acclaimed artist Rudolf Stingel. In utilizing, and often de-mystifying, what seem to be radically varied techniques of abstraction, photo-realism and installation, Rudolf Stingel’s work has taken aim at the transcendental ambitions and metaphysical loftiness of various moments from the history of art. For this exhibition, the artist will deepen his exploration of portraiture to present a series of new paintings that constitute a kind of cultural self-portrait.
Stingel’s work has been straddling the poles of conceptual deadpan-ness and aesthetic gratification for more than two decades. He is a painter whose work often takes the form of all-over interventions in architectural space, broadening and destabilizing the definition of traditional painting. As part of his 2007 mid-career retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago and at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the artist covered the gallery walls with metallic Celotex insulation board and invited museum-goers to graffiti or mark them up without restrictions. Alongside his brilliantly executed photo-realist self-portraits and abstract canvases, Stingel invited the spectator to debunk the pristine purity of museum walls and subvert expectations of artistic authorship.
Rudolf Stingel was born in 1956 in Merano, Italy and lives and works in New York City and Italy.
