魯道夫·斯丁格爾

高古軒畫廊，紐約
現藏家2011年購自上述畫廊

This work is in excellent condition. Please contact the Contemporary Art Department at +1 (212) 606-7254 for the report prepared by Terrence Mahon. The canvas is unframed.
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Evincing an ethereal spectral trace of an elegant Oriental rug, Untitled is an alluring and beguiling example of Rudolf Stingel’s iconic series of carpet paintings. With a deadpan insistence on the medium of painting itself, Stingel translates the underlying instability of Baroque richesse to create a profound space between decadence and restraint. In the present work, the image of the carpet is lavishly painted across the canvas as if through a stencil, evoking the mechanical process of screening and foregrounding the commercial seriality that is central to Stingel’s stance on the industrialization and mechanization of ornamentation and beauty. Throughout his career, Stingel has challenged the role and obligation of painting in contemporary art, cultivating an assiduously theoretical body of work that calls into question the authorial status of the artist and the aesthetic function of painting as a medium. The present work beautifully crystallizes these artistic investigations in an expertly executed and luminous monumental canvas.

 

Stingel has long been fascinated by the conceptual and painterly portent of the carpet, which first appeared in his oeuvre in the form of a bright orange rug installed on the floor in his show at the Daniel Newburg Gallery, New York in 2001. Since then, this conceptual engagement with banal decoration has developed into all-consuming installations and a body of work that includes Untitled. The Oriental carpet that so enchants the artist possesses a rich history across the story of Western art; from featuring as backdrops in early Renaissance panels to appearing in vibrant paintings by Henri Matisse, the carpet has recurred as a painterly device to define and destabilize conventional notions of space. Stingel harnesses this canonical art historical trope and pushes the limit even further: not only has he incorporated textile into his painterly method and made carpet the subject of his paintings, he has also invited carpet itself into the painterly realm. Untitled extends Stingel’s pioneering industrialized process first codified by his influential Instructions paintings by providing an imprint or trace of a predetermined referent, namely the decorative art found in his native Tyrol and Vienna.

 

Towering above the viewer, the present work engulfs the viewer in a vibrant experience in which the vivid red paint stenciled onto the luminescent silver background gives the surface a feeling of luster. In clearly articulated and detailed curlicues and repetitive pattern, Untitled gives the impression of embroidery and depth, the diaphanous silver drawing seducing viewers through readymade opulence. In taking up his own dialogue with the readymade patterning of wallpaper, Stingel sought to exploit its inherent decorative properties: “Artists have always been accused of being decorators, so I just went to the extreme and painted the wallpaper.” (the artist cited in Linda Yablonsky, “The Carpet that Ate Grand Central,” The New York Times, June 27, 2004)

 

Although firmly rooted in a post-modern approach to affirming painting’s value, Stingel’s oeuvre has always preserved an element of recalcitrance and sedition. Both the artist’s photorealist and carpet paintings reveal the persistence of autobiographical influences, particularly for this painting, to Stingel’s home in Italy. Stingel engaged his own biography and surroundings as a vehicle for painting, not necessarily as subjects, but as a means to explore his conceptual and technical interest in the medium. Crucially, Stingel conceptually outsources authorship via a Warholian ‘do it yourself’ approach, employing a visual mode that also evokes the extravagance of Rococo, Baroque, and Belle Époque designs, which were once harnessed to create luxurious damask wallpapers, carpets, and iron window guards with cut velvet floral forms. Untitled balances this complex relationship between intricate craftsmanship and a commercial process that undermines the status of the artist. Stripped of the saturated color and plush texture intrinsic to real Oriental rugs, these paintings are ghostlike renditions that invoke the realm of memory and nostalgia.