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Lot Essay
Executed in 1992, Rudolf Stingel's Untitled emits an optical intensity through its undulating tones of silver and electric vermillion, arresting the viewer in a mesmerising trance. Richly covered in silvery scales, the remnants of tulle during the mark-making process, the surface of the work seems to be caught in the moment of its unveiling. As demonstrated in his step-by-step manual, 'Instructions' in 1989, Stingel's monochromes were created by spraying silver enamel through a layer of tulle on to a canvas primed with a layer of red oil paint. The artist then removed the layer of tulle, leaving behind its permanent print and undeniable presence during the artistic process. The materiality of the paint radiates and slides over the surface, giving the work a sense of illusionism and spatial tension that links Stingel's work to the sublime monochromes of the Abstract Expressionists. At the same time, the pure contingency of his method underscores the construction process and finds a greater affinity with Richter's squeegee works. Probing the limits of traditional painting, Stingel investigates the boundaries of the medium through surface and materiality.
The artist's exploration of this ideology over the past thirty years has brought him into dialogue with various materials, all of which have a common seductive tactility. His installations have progressed from silver celotex walls where viewers are invited to make their own mark on the surface to expanses of shag carpets that merge the surface and materiality of paint into one fused object. The thread which links all of his interrogations is that of the surface, and the potential for its tactility to engage us to leave a mark in the everyday. As one example of his exploration of this methodology from his monochrome series, the materials from Untitled both capture the presence of his gesture as well as the gesture itself, allowing the surface of his canvas to become an impressionable space.
Stingel presents a fascinating dichotomy between the characteristics inherent in the process itself and the imprint that is left indelibly on the canvas. Whereas the qualities of tulle evoke notions of softly structured, billowy and ethereal fabric, the mark that is left on the canvas is cold and reptilian, proof of its facture. The mesh's shifting appearance, captured in perpetuity on the surface of the canvas highlights its ambiguous quality of being both present enough to leave an imprint, but also impermanent enough to allow the silvery paint to leave its mark as well. The process of peeling away the tulle has captured all of its imperfections, folds, and wrinkles, in a way that begs the viewer to cast their hand over the canvas to feel what is no longer there. As Francesco Bonami notes, 'Stingel's work is an X ray of his memory, of the memory of his painting. The real thing, the physical object, or the real person has already disappeared, irradiated by time' (F. Bonami, quoted in Rudolf Stingel, exh. cat., Gagosian Gallery, New York, 2011, p. 10).
The artist's exploration of this ideology over the past thirty years has brought him into dialogue with various materials, all of which have a common seductive tactility. His installations have progressed from silver celotex walls where viewers are invited to make their own mark on the surface to expanses of shag carpets that merge the surface and materiality of paint into one fused object. The thread which links all of his interrogations is that of the surface, and the potential for its tactility to engage us to leave a mark in the everyday. As one example of his exploration of this methodology from his monochrome series, the materials from Untitled both capture the presence of his gesture as well as the gesture itself, allowing the surface of his canvas to become an impressionable space.
Stingel presents a fascinating dichotomy between the characteristics inherent in the process itself and the imprint that is left indelibly on the canvas. Whereas the qualities of tulle evoke notions of softly structured, billowy and ethereal fabric, the mark that is left on the canvas is cold and reptilian, proof of its facture. The mesh's shifting appearance, captured in perpetuity on the surface of the canvas highlights its ambiguous quality of being both present enough to leave an imprint, but also impermanent enough to allow the silvery paint to leave its mark as well. The process of peeling away the tulle has captured all of its imperfections, folds, and wrinkles, in a way that begs the viewer to cast their hand over the canvas to feel what is no longer there. As Francesco Bonami notes, 'Stingel's work is an X ray of his memory, of the memory of his painting. The real thing, the physical object, or the real person has already disappeared, irradiated by time' (F. Bonami, quoted in Rudolf Stingel, exh. cat., Gagosian Gallery, New York, 2011, p. 10).