“Silver makes everything look contemporary… If you paint something silver, it looks, I don’t know, from today.”
RUDOLF STINGEL, 2004
While painting is an action, it must also be an observation. 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’ in Rudolf Stingel, London, 2007, pp. 13-14)
First recognized in the late 1980s for his monochromatic works, Rudolf Stingel has developed a singular approach to painting aiming to examine and reinvigorate the very
essence of creative acts. Characterized by simultaneous attention to surface, image, color and space he creates new paradigms for the meaning of painting: Reflecting
upon the fundamental questions concerning the practice today– authenticity, meaning, hierarchy and context. Stingel’s works form a unique approach, attempting to overcome the gap between figuration and abstraction, constantly negotiating a balance between kairos and kronos. That is, between the exact moment of time in which the viewer is confronted with the present – or its illusion for that matter – and the eternal time, which never ends but concludes in abstraction. Stingel thus moves painting one step further, understanding that it carries energy and consumes it, and that abstraction happens when the power goes of momentarily.