Daniel Baumann
04 May - 15 Jun 2009
DANIEL BAUMANN
"On the Work of Rita Vitorelli"
In the past 25 years there have been two big waves of figurative expressive painting. Both were reactions to ritualized distance: in 1980 it opposed the ubiquitous forms of Conceptual Art and their derivatives; since 2000 it has been opposing the current all-penetrating superficiality and irony. In both cases the market responds with enthusiasm, for the demand for painted pictures for the wall is constant. What pleases the upper middle class and the elite more than figurative expressive painting? Cool design. Together they form the basis of today’s idea of contemporary lifestyle.
The work of Rita Vitorelli is to be seen in this context. She devotes herself to the rhetoric of a painting practice that has returned repeatedly over hundreds of years and aims at clarification, abstinence and recovery. It begins with the choice of the meaningless motif: branches in bud, abandoned interiors or young people’s rooms are platitudes whose specific meaning has been dissolved, so that any interpretation is possible. The motif is sketched on the canvas in pencil and doubled in places with watery, running paints. Vitorelli makes use of the painterly gesture established by Expressionism and its successors, and empties it out. To this day, this gesture represents spontaneity and authenticity. The public and artists are still convinced that it expresses atmosphere and significance. And yet, in most cases it is merely packaging and the result of convention, tradition and adaptation to the market. Vitorelli denies the motif, the brushstroke and the ductus the possibility of suggestiveness. They serve only to organize the canvas and to lay this process open. Nothing else? Oh, indeed: clarification and recovery of a language, autonomy for materials and methods, a search for formal brilliance on the verge of nothingness and anger as light as a feather.
"On the Work of Rita Vitorelli"
In the past 25 years there have been two big waves of figurative expressive painting. Both were reactions to ritualized distance: in 1980 it opposed the ubiquitous forms of Conceptual Art and their derivatives; since 2000 it has been opposing the current all-penetrating superficiality and irony. In both cases the market responds with enthusiasm, for the demand for painted pictures for the wall is constant. What pleases the upper middle class and the elite more than figurative expressive painting? Cool design. Together they form the basis of today’s idea of contemporary lifestyle.
The work of Rita Vitorelli is to be seen in this context. She devotes herself to the rhetoric of a painting practice that has returned repeatedly over hundreds of years and aims at clarification, abstinence and recovery. It begins with the choice of the meaningless motif: branches in bud, abandoned interiors or young people’s rooms are platitudes whose specific meaning has been dissolved, so that any interpretation is possible. The motif is sketched on the canvas in pencil and doubled in places with watery, running paints. Vitorelli makes use of the painterly gesture established by Expressionism and its successors, and empties it out. To this day, this gesture represents spontaneity and authenticity. The public and artists are still convinced that it expresses atmosphere and significance. And yet, in most cases it is merely packaging and the result of convention, tradition and adaptation to the market. Vitorelli denies the motif, the brushstroke and the ductus the possibility of suggestiveness. They serve only to organize the canvas and to lay this process open. Nothing else? Oh, indeed: clarification and recovery of a language, autonomy for materials and methods, a search for formal brilliance on the verge of nothingness and anger as light as a feather.