Galerie Lelong & Co.

Untitled
Oil on wood
109,5 x 86 cm
© Courtesy Arnulf Rainer and Galerie Lelong & Co.
Untitled
Acrylic on laser print mounted on wood
43,5 x 31,5 cm
© Courtesy Arnulf Rainer and Galerie Lelong & Co.
Untitled
Acrylic on laser print mounted on wood
31,5 x 43,5 cm
© Courtesy Arnulf Rainer and Galerie Lelong & Co.
Untitled
Acrylic on paper mounted on wood
61 x 44 cm
© Courtesy Arnulf Rainer and Galerie Lelong & Co.
Untitled
Acrylic on laser print mounted on wood
43,5 x 31,5 cm
© Courtesy Arnulf Rainer and Galerie Lelong & Co.
Untitled
Acrylic on paper mounted on wood
61 x 44 cm
© Courtesy Arnulf Rainer and Galerie Lelong & Co.
Untitled
Acrylic on laser print mounted on wood
31,5 x 43,5 cm
© Courtesy Arnulf Rainer and Galerie Lelong & Co.
Untitled
Acrylic on paper mounted on wood
52 x 37 cm
© Courtesy Arnulf Rainer and Galerie Lelong & Co.
Untitled
Acrylic on paper mounted on wood
52 x 37 cm
© Courtesy Arnulf Rainer and Galerie Lelong & Co.
The Austrian artist Arnulf Rainer is renowned for his “Übermalungen”. Over his six-decade-long career, he has layered brushstrokes over existing artworks to highlight, protect or erase underlying motifs in an iconoclastic gesture. Our solo show on the booth in Spark echoes his new exhibition at Galerie Lelong & Co. in Paris which assembles around 40 paintings from the ‘Ex-Nihilo’ series (2015 and 2016). This series reveals a new departure in Rainer’s oeuvre, as the gesture made to execute the paintings was more focused on wrist movements than large arm movements. What also distinguishes these new works is that they have been realized in smaller formats than the large formats for which the artist is known. The change of scale nevertheless retains a power of expression, the spatial organization of the canvases being characterized by the superposition and juxtaposition of large, slender forms and plays of transparency. According to Corinna Thierolf, former director of the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich and author of the catalogue text accompanying the exhibition, this „quasi-verticality of these features makes us feel the unshakeable physical presence of the painter in the face of the placeless void.”
Arnulf Rainer was born in 1929 in Baden (Austria) where a museum dedicated to his work opened in 2009. He lives and works in Austria and Tenerife. In Austria in the 1950s, Arnulf Rainer developed a particularly obsessive way of drawing and painting. In 1951, with the artist Maria Lassnig, he visited André Breton in Paris. His work, initially influenced by surrealism, evolved towards a sort of informal, radical art. In the early 1960s, he worked on his own image, furiously modifying photo booth shots, photographic self-portraits where he adopted deliberately grotesque poses. He thus become one of the main protagonists of Viennese Actionism. Then overpainting (Übermalung) become his trademark: his works are made from successive layers of paint that cover an initial image, sometimes to such an extent that it is no longer visible. This is not just a simple game, but a sort of intense ritual mobilising all the painter’s energy.
The gallery’s original founding by Aimé Maeght in 1945 saw the presentation of great artists like Joan Miró, Alexander Calder, Marc Chagall, Alberto Giacometti, Antoni Tàpies, Francis Bacon and Eduardo Chillida.  After Maeght’s death in 1981, the gallery adopted its current name and structure with directors and equal shareholders Jacques Dupin, Daniel Lelong and Jean Frémon (J. Dupin died in 2012, the same year D. Lelong retired from his position of CEO and was replaced by J. Frémon as President and CEO of both galleries, Paris and New York). From 1981 on, began a period of adding influential artists such as Pierre Alechinsky, Louise Bourgeois, Konrad Klapheck and Jannis Kounellis, among others. The gallery in New York was founded in 1985, and is directed by Mary Sabbatino since 1990, who has been a leading proponent in the introduction of important figures from Latin America into the critical discourse: Alfredo Jaar, Ana Mendieta, Cildo Meireles, Hélio Oiticica and Zilia Sánchez. Today the gallery continues its history of representing artists at the forefront of the international art world from nearly every continent and all generations including Etel Adnan, Leonardo Drew, Barry Flanagan, Günther Förg, David Hockney, Sam Levi Jones, Nalini Malini, David Nash, Jaume Plensa, Sean Scully, Kiki Smith, Nancy Spero, and Barthélémy Toguo. The gallery has developed the production of monumental sculptures in public space, with artists such as Jaume Plensa, Ursula von Rydingsvard and Jean Dubuffet (through a privileged relationship with the Dubuffet Foundation).
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+33145631319
Nathalie Berghege
+33681755841
The Austrian artist Arnulf Rainer is renowned for his “Übermalungen”. Over his six-decade-long career, he has layered brushstrokes over existing artworks to highlight, protect or erase underlying motifs in an iconoclastic gesture. Our solo show on the booth in Spark echoes his new exhibition at Galerie Lelong & Co. in Paris which assembles around 40 paintings from the ‘Ex-Nihilo’ series (2015 and 2016). This series reveals a new departure in Rainer’s oeuvre, as the gesture made to execute the paintings was more focused on wrist movements than large arm movements. What also distinguishes these new works is that they have been realized in smaller formats than the large formats for which the artist is known. The change of scale nevertheless retains a power of expression, the spatial organization of the canvases being characterized by the superposition and juxtaposition of large, slender forms and plays of transparency. According to Corinna Thierolf, former director of the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich and author of the catalogue text accompanying the exhibition, this „quasi-verticality of these features makes us feel the unshakeable physical presence of the painter in the face of the placeless void.”
Arnulf Rainer was born in 1929 in Baden (Austria) where a museum dedicated to his work opened in 2009. He lives and works in Austria and Tenerife. In Austria in the 1950s, Arnulf Rainer developed a particularly obsessive way of drawing and painting. In 1951, with the artist Maria Lassnig, he visited André Breton in Paris. His work, initially influenced by surrealism, evolved towards a sort of informal, radical art. In the early 1960s, he worked on his own image, furiously modifying photo booth shots, photographic self-portraits where he adopted deliberately grotesque poses. He thus become one of the main protagonists of Viennese Actionism. Then overpainting (Übermalung) become his trademark: his works are made from successive layers of paint that cover an initial image, sometimes to such an extent that it is no longer visible. This is not just a simple game, but a sort of intense ritual mobilising all the painter’s energy.
The gallery’s original founding by Aimé Maeght in 1945 saw the presentation of great artists like Joan Miró, Alexander Calder, Marc Chagall, Alberto Giacometti, Antoni Tàpies, Francis Bacon and Eduardo Chillida.  After Maeght’s death in 1981, the gallery adopted its current name and structure with directors and equal shareholders Jacques Dupin, Daniel Lelong and Jean Frémon (J. Dupin died in 2012, the same year D. Lelong retired from his position of CEO and was replaced by J. Frémon as President and CEO of both galleries, Paris and New York). From 1981 on, began a period of adding influential artists such as Pierre Alechinsky, Louise Bourgeois, Konrad Klapheck and Jannis Kounellis, among others. The gallery in New York was founded in 1985, and is directed by Mary Sabbatino since 1990, who has been a leading proponent in the introduction of important figures from Latin America into the critical discourse: Alfredo Jaar, Ana Mendieta, Cildo Meireles, Hélio Oiticica and Zilia Sánchez. Today the gallery continues its history of representing artists at the forefront of the international art world from nearly every continent and all generations including Etel Adnan, Leonardo Drew, Barry Flanagan, Günther Förg, David Hockney, Sam Levi Jones, Nalini Malini, David Nash, Jaume Plensa, Sean Scully, Kiki Smith, Nancy Spero, and Barthélémy Toguo. The gallery has developed the production of monumental sculptures in public space, with artists such as Jaume Plensa, Ursula von Rydingsvard and Jean Dubuffet (through a privileged relationship with the Dubuffet Foundation).