“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” - Rudolf Stingel, 2011

Untitled, 2002, exemplifies in Rudolf Stingel’s oeuvre a perfect fusion of sculpture and painting. As a member of Stingel’s landmark series in which he placed aluminum foil over top of celotex board, then allowed his observers to mark them as he pleased, Stingel blurs the line between the artist and observer. As a recurrent theme in his celebrated thirty-year career in visual art, Stingel has increasingly placed the onus of meaning within the observer’s own familiar environment, either in artistic manipulation of tapestry or in the viewer’s ability to form the piece through his own graffiti.

The present lot is a perfect model for understanding Stingel’s gradually shifting use of the verb “paint.” Here, it is defined by the formation of a new reality by the hand of the observer: “The mere act of painting does not create a painting but simply some painting. But if the action of painting is used as a lens to observe reality to create another reality, then we have a painting…Stingel creates a transitive way to recede from abstraction into the subject and to push the subject into a different kind of time.” (Francesco Bonami, ed., 'Paintings of Paintings for Paintings—The Kairology and Kronology of Rudolf Stingel', Rudolf Stingel, London, 2007, pp. 13-14).

The X-ray mentioned above is a memory itself; the creation of Untitled, 2002, was a mere moment in time, allowing for the development of the piece by a variety of onlookers. In allowing us a look into this fleeting moment, Stingel has made use of the most abundant form of paint: time.