Rudolf Stingel was born in 1956 in Merano, South Tyrol, Italy, and lives in New York. He explores myriad ways of making paintings and extending the idea of what painting might be. With both a love of his medium and skepticism about the possibility of creating something new from such a time-honoured discipline, Rudolf explores a range of forms of painting, from abstraction to photorealism.
Exhibition view of Whitney Biennial 2006: Day for Night, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, March 7-May 26, 2006
Photo by Sheldan C. Collins, Courtesy of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
He emerged in the 1980s, a period in which painting was condemned to obsolescence by some prominent critics, but he met this dismissal with a tangible sense of liberation, pushing painting beyond its traditional formats and contexts into the realms of sculpture and installation, while also engaging with historical genres and with key figures and objects in art history. The result is a body of work that is simultaneously weighty in the seriousness with which it questions painting and fleet-footed in the way that it relentlessly shifts, doubles-back and invents.
Artwork © Rudolf Stingel
Photo: Object Studies Courtesy the artist and Gagosian
Stingel reflects on his constant irreverence for convention, his attempts to “crank up the volume” in his groups of paintings and installation, the subtle strain of autobiography through his work. He discusses the early influence of Pablo Picasso, the enduring impact of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and the energy given to him by close friendships with artists including Urs Fischer and Maurizio Cattelan. He talks about the impact of films by Marguerite Duras and the music of Brian Eno. Plus, he answers our usual questions, including those about the art he would like to live with and the rituals of studio life.
- Rudolf Stingel: Vineyard Paintings, Gagosian, Grosvenor Hill, London, until 20 September; Les yeux dans les yeux: portraits from the Pinault Collection, Couvent des Jacobins, Rennes, France, until 14 September
This podcast is sponsored by Bloomberg Connects, the arts and culture platform.
Bloomberg Connects offers access to a vast range of international cultural organisations through a single click, with new guides being added regularly. They include several museums and organisations in the US that have shown and collected the work of Rudolf Stingel, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Walker Art Center, and the Hill Art Foundation. The guide to the Hill Art Foundation features in-depth content on exhibitions past and present, including the current show dedicated to Sam Moyer, called Woman with Holes. You can hear Moyer giving an introduction to the exhibition—which brings her work into conversation with art from the Foundation’s collection, including pieces by Liz Glynn, Robert Gober and Jasper Johns—and hear educators from the foundation discuss in detail Moyer’s work and that of the artists showing with her. Elsewhere on the guide, there are features on other objects in the Hill Collection.
