Rudolf Stingel at Paula Cooper Gallery
Is Less More
By: Charles Giuliano - Mar 21, 2009
Rudolf Stingel
Paula Cooper Gallery
512-534 West 25th Street
NY, NY 10001
212 255 1105
Through March 21, 2009
Entering the vast, industrial scaled space of Chelsea's Paula Copper Gallery, in the enormous, vaulted main gallery, approaching the far wall one encounters a very small painting by the Italian born, conceptual/ realist artist Rudolf Stingel.
The initial response to this disproportion between the modest scale of several meticulously rendered, grisaille painting based on photographs of Gothic sculptures is that this is either an example of pretentious excess or an absurd joke. Are we to assume that all of that empty wall space is part of the conceptual installation? That approach involves looking at the entire gestalt of the container as well as what is contained.
By presenting just a few, small, photorealist paintings in such an imposing surrounding there is a statement made that implies the significance and value of the work presented. The gallery is clearly making a commitment to use all of the space of its physical presence to support and enhance the work of the artist. This strategy also negates intimacy. It reverses the norm where a small and precious work of art is presented in a setting that allows us to have private and personal interaction with all of the intimate aspects of exquisite craft.
The detail, scale and subject matter imply the experience of contact with a Flemish master. We are used to getting as close as possible to study every nuance of a van Eyck masterpiece; or to linger while absorbing every phenomenal morsel of a Bosch. But that is not the case here. No, Stingel is not channeling and appropriating a Flemish master but rather offering a dead pan rendering of a stock, black and white photograph of a detail of a Gothic sculpture.
The work does not reveal the artist's passion for the subjects he depicts. Is the choice of beatific sculpture just an arbitrary decision? Are we to share in a form of veneration? Are the images just conceptual tropes and opportunities to demonstrate consummate skill in an academic sense?
Are these works about the saints depicted in such a labor intensive manner? Do they bring us closer to our notions of spirituality which would, indeed, be the agenda of a Flemish painting? Or, in a post modern, avant-garde strategy are they in fact intended to deflate notions of piety as an elaborate ironic joke. Do we the viewers adore or reject the images for all of the right and wrong reasons? Is that the trap? To lure us into the visual equivalent of Sartre's "No Exit?" Are we intended to be undone by our own expectations and received knowledge?
In that sense, if we are hip, informed, and up on philosophy and theory, we sigh in acknowledgement of being in the presence of the sublime. Or do we succumb to the less informed, arguably vulgarian response that the artist is pulling a fast one on us?
Of course, there is the matter of location, location, location as well as credentials to consider. This is, after all, the Paula Cooper gallery. Were the work presented by a less prestigious gallery would we be so willing to cut it slack? Then one risks playing the fool if you don't acknowledge the formidable credentials of the artist and the major museums and international exhibitions that have shown the work. But is this just the usual intimidation and blackmail? Isn't it our job as viewers to make up our minds about the value and integrity of visual experiences? This is the very nature of encountering new work. It falls on the critic to make evaluations that will stand up over time. Perhaps the best option is to flip a coin. Heads? Or Tails?
What follows is the statement issued by the Gallery. This is the "official" position.
"Â…In utilizing, and often de-mystifying, what seem to be radically varied techniques of abstraction, photo-realism and installation, Rudolf Stingel's work has taken aim at the transcendental ambitions and metaphysical loftiness of various moments from the history of art. For this exhibition, the artist will deepen his exploration of portraiture to present a series of new paintings that constitute a kind of cultural self-portrait.
Stingel's work has been straddling the poles of conceptual deadpan-ness and aesthetic gratification for more than two decades. He is a painter whose work often takes the form of all-over interventions in architectural space, broadening and destabilizing the definition of traditional painting. As part of his 2007 mid-career retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago and at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the artist covered the gallery walls with metallic Celotex insulation board and invited museum-goers to graffiti or mark them up without restrictions. Alongside his brilliantly executed photo-realist self-portraits and abstract canvases, Stingel invited the spectator to debunk the pristine purity of museum walls and subvert expectations of artistic authorshipÂ…"