At Fondation Beyeler the first major exhibition dedicated to Rudolf Stingel in Europe

An exhibition dedicated to contemporary painter Rudolf Stingel (Merano, 1956) opened at the Fondation Beyeler: this is the first major exhibition dedicated to him in Europe, as well as the first in Switzerland since the one held at the Kunsthalle Zurich in 1995.
On display are the artist’s most significant series, tracing the last three decades of his production.

The exhibition itinerary unfolds in the nine rooms located in the south wing of the Fondation and in two rooms of the Berower Park restaurant: no chronological order is followed, but the works are arranged in juxtaposition between one and the other, according to the design of curator Udo Kittelmann in collaboration with the artist. Some works are new and there are also site-specific installations that have never been exhibited before.

Rudolf Stingel has redefined the concept of painting: since his beginnings in the late 1980s he has explored the potential and limits imposed by painting itself, in an interplay between artistic processes, materials and forms. Alongside several series of abstract and hyperrealist compositions, he made large-scale works in polystyrene or paintings made from metal castings, and spaces covered with carpets and silvery insulating panels to touch or walk through.

In the early 1990s he made site-specific works: in 1991, for his first solo show at the Daniel Newburg Gallery in New York, he exhibited a single work, namely an orange-colored carpet that covered the entire gallery except the walls. The carpet became a painting on which the traces of the painterly gesture (visitors were invited to smooth or ruffle the surface with their hands as if they were paintbrushes) were temporarily visible, only to fade away thanks to new overwritten marks. In the late 1990s, however, the artist began working on polystyrene panels: hung on the walls, they appear entirely covered with engraved lines and patterns.

Later, Stingel had entire rooms covered with silvered, reflective insulating sheets, inviting people to leave messages or footprints: installations intended to lead to sharing. In other cases he left already completed canvases on the floor that over time were subjected to splashes of color and footprints.

What all of Stingel’s works have in common are the random or intentional pictorial traces that surface on their surfaces, evoking time and randomness, change and decay. Thus Stingel’s works raise fundamental questions about the understanding and perception of art, about memory and transience.

Among the works created this year are the hyperrealist spray gun canvas and a series of five works with changing colors between pink, purple and silver. And three never-before-seen site-specific installations: a wall work consisting of an orange carpet that invites you to trace marks on it with your hands; an entire cross-wall of the museum with the motif of a Persian sarugh rug; and a work with celotex insulation panels that spans several walls, encroaching on the restaurant in Berower Park.

The exhibition is on view to the public through Oct. 6, 2019.

For info: www.fondationbeyeler.ch

Hours: daily from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Wednesday until 8 p.m.

Image: Rudolf Stingel, Untitled (2018; oil on canvas, 241.3 x 589.3 cm; three parts, each 241.3 x 193 cm).© Rudolf Stingel Photo: John Lehr

At Fondation Beyeler the first major exhibition dedicated to Rudolf Stingel in Europe

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