Rudolf Stingel
16 Sep - 08 Nov 2014
RUDOLF STINGEL
16 September — 8 November 2014
Massimo De Carlo gallery is glad to announce the opening of its 2014-2015 season with a solo exhibition by the artist Rudolf Stingel.
Rudolf Stingel’s work engages with the public by creating a dialogue on the perception of space and time, exploring how materials and substance find themselves in a delicate balance between action and reaction, passivity and participation, absence and presence.
The new form of elegant abstraction of this heterogeneous and many-sided body of work, is the result of Stingel’s research on how to challenge spatiality: he evokes new symbolic dimensions, which are enhanced by the use of precious colours such as gold and silver.
The usage of materials as styrofoam and carpet is key in Stingel’s exploration of the relationship between space and painting: since the early Nineties he developed a series of works which explored the process of creation, by covering and wrapping walls and floors in order to transform the architecture of the exhibiting venues into spectacular painted canvases.
Rudolf Stingel will present in Milan two new bodies of work. The space in the first room of Massimo De Carlo gallery will be dominated by large pattern paintings. The paintings recall the décor of a baroque tapestry, and for the first time the artist here uses magenta for the background. Although the motive repeats itself in the same way on all the paintings, every subtle imperfection confers a different aspect to each canvas, which will appear different from the others. The intensity of the décor varies, allowing, on every canvas, new details to emerge from the background. The precious quality of the material overflows from each work, leaving the work aesthetically lying between painting and decoration.
In the second room of the gallery, there is only one massive work which imposes its own rhythm to the space. The plates that compose it are the result of the cast of celotex insulation panels, like the ones that Stingel used in the past to cover the surfaces of museums and galleries: here the public was allowed to engage with the panels by leaving traces of its passage in the form of signs, gestures and signatures. Here, for the first time Stingel creates the cast of a wall which is pristine as it is before the public engages with it, made in copper and subsequently chromed in nickel, creating a unique reflecting surface which appears to be soft but at the same time cold and rigid.
The narrative of the exhibition ends with a series of square silver panels, created with the same technique as the work on the lower floor. The celotex mould of these relational works have been already placed on a floor and have been walked on, consumed and eroded by the public’s passage. The weight of the bodies of the viewers and their shoes have left their trace: the moment, the gesture, the hesitation before a step and the most delicate details are all imprisoned in metal. The presence of man and the passage of time, palpable and tangible, are trapped and crystallized for ever in a fragment of material.
16 September — 8 November 2014
Massimo De Carlo gallery is glad to announce the opening of its 2014-2015 season with a solo exhibition by the artist Rudolf Stingel.
Rudolf Stingel’s work engages with the public by creating a dialogue on the perception of space and time, exploring how materials and substance find themselves in a delicate balance between action and reaction, passivity and participation, absence and presence.
The new form of elegant abstraction of this heterogeneous and many-sided body of work, is the result of Stingel’s research on how to challenge spatiality: he evokes new symbolic dimensions, which are enhanced by the use of precious colours such as gold and silver.
The usage of materials as styrofoam and carpet is key in Stingel’s exploration of the relationship between space and painting: since the early Nineties he developed a series of works which explored the process of creation, by covering and wrapping walls and floors in order to transform the architecture of the exhibiting venues into spectacular painted canvases.
Rudolf Stingel will present in Milan two new bodies of work. The space in the first room of Massimo De Carlo gallery will be dominated by large pattern paintings. The paintings recall the décor of a baroque tapestry, and for the first time the artist here uses magenta for the background. Although the motive repeats itself in the same way on all the paintings, every subtle imperfection confers a different aspect to each canvas, which will appear different from the others. The intensity of the décor varies, allowing, on every canvas, new details to emerge from the background. The precious quality of the material overflows from each work, leaving the work aesthetically lying between painting and decoration.
In the second room of the gallery, there is only one massive work which imposes its own rhythm to the space. The plates that compose it are the result of the cast of celotex insulation panels, like the ones that Stingel used in the past to cover the surfaces of museums and galleries: here the public was allowed to engage with the panels by leaving traces of its passage in the form of signs, gestures and signatures. Here, for the first time Stingel creates the cast of a wall which is pristine as it is before the public engages with it, made in copper and subsequently chromed in nickel, creating a unique reflecting surface which appears to be soft but at the same time cold and rigid.
The narrative of the exhibition ends with a series of square silver panels, created with the same technique as the work on the lower floor. The celotex mould of these relational works have been already placed on a floor and have been walked on, consumed and eroded by the public’s passage. The weight of the bodies of the viewers and their shoes have left their trace: the moment, the gesture, the hesitation before a step and the most delicate details are all imprisoned in metal. The presence of man and the passage of time, palpable and tangible, are trapped and crystallized for ever in a fragment of material.