Beschreibung:

7 Rudolf Stingel Untitled (Bolego) 2007 oil on canvas 38.1 x 52.1 cm. (15 x 20 1/2 in.) Signed and dated 'Stingel 2007' on the reverse.
Provenance Paula Cooper Gallery, New York Catalogue Essay 'All work is autobiographical, so, that’s why I decided to just paint myself, instead of trying to come up with all kinds of wonderful ways to show myself.' Rudolf Stingel Consistently pushing the boundaries of painting, Rudolf Stingel is one of the most provocative and innovative living artists today. His work seamlessly weaves traditional means of painting with the bravura of Modernism and the critical investigation of artistic production. Examining these art-historical underpinnings, Stingel’s celebrated practice is paradoxically devoid of nostalgia while it oscillates between abstraction and figuration. Recognized for his highly conceptual yet formal-looking monochromatic works, the artist has managed to expand the relationship of painting and architecture, engaging the once mutually exclusive parameters of walls and floors with his carpet pieces, wallpaper paintings and Styrofoam panels penetrated with foot prints. Indeed, Stingel’s work has often meditated on the indexical notion of trace, memory and representational experimentation, exemplified in the present lot, Untitled (Bolego), 2007. Stemming from his series of photorealist self-portraits, Untitled (Bolego), 2007, is an autobiographical work in so far as it references the self-portrait genre while examining the role of the artist and the romantic notion of aura. In the tradition of masters such as Gerhard Richter and Andy Warhol Stingel engages in self-portraiture, painting and mechanical reproduction. This intimately scaled work depicts Stingel as a brooding and worldly gentleman, perpetuated by his rugged features, suit and lit cigar, his gaze is fixed on a subject outside of the picture plane, just outside of the viewer’s reach. His emotional presence subtley absorbs the viewer, the pensive and pointed expression on Stingel’s face, evidenced by the crease in his forehead and piercing gaze, belies his worldliness. As with any self-portrait, he, the artist, is the subject of the painting, yet Stingel also makes himself the object of this painting. While Stingel’s attention might be held elsewhere, his physical presence is undeniable, consuming the majority of the picture plane. He is the center of attention, emphasized by the warm glow of candles along the lower right of the canvas, their symbolic presence connoting the celebration of the artist, a milestone, a cause for reflection. The artist is illuminated and enlivened by the candles, the single source of light, each flame reaching upwards in sublime exaltation. Stingel’s self-portraits are based on photographs taken by Sam Samore his first series of self-portraits produced in 2005-2006 were attributed to Samore in their titles. As in Untitled (Afer Sam), 2005, Stingel is depicted alone in the composition, clad in the same suit, however, reclined in bed, his glassy eyes fixed towards the heavens, his hair somewhat disheveled. Each work in this series suggests narrative and interior dialogue, the entire structure playing before us like a silent film, flickering in black and white. There are no false pretenses in his large-scale work, in which the artist acknowledges both the photograph upon which these paintings are based and the photographer. Stingel remade the black-and-white projection of the photograph into a mirror-imaged painting swathed in grey scale reminiscent of black and white photography– the vehicle of memory par excellence. Certainly, the careful gesture of each work is not lost on the viewer, in fact, Stingel staged each scene for Samore and then meticulously recreated it on canvas with the help of his assistants, creating a giant grid and painstakingly recreating each fraction of the photographic composition. In doing so, Stingel questions both the authenticity of the painting and his role in creating it. Stingel’s attempt to demystify the art object undermines the romantic trope of the artist and instead draws our attention back to the