Arnulf Rainer. Fingermalereien. Christ – Frauen – Tote. Bochum, Galerie m, 1984, ill. p. 61
Literature and illustration
H.-L.-Alexander v. Berswordt-Wallrabe (ed.): Arnulf Rainer. Fingermalerein, 1975-1984, Christ-Frauen-Tote, 1982-1984. Bochum, m Bochum, Galerie für Film, Foto, Neue Konkrete Kunst und Video, 1984, ill. p. 61.
In 1980, Arnulf Rainer began to overpaint photographs depicting the face of the suffering Christ. In 1983, the year he started this particular work, he intensified his focus on Christs heads. Rainer calls his approach “art on art,” in which he circles, frames, gesturally covers, and physically engages with the motif mounted on a light background.
Rainer himself describes his highly active and energetic process as follows: “It is not a passive experience but an active struggle. When I paint, it involves great effort, concentration, and exertion. Often, I have laid down on the studio floor and fallen asleep from exhaustion. Creative exhaustion and being exhausted are interconnected.”
His Christ overpaintings are created entirely without tools, using only his fingers. In his circular movements around the head, he reintroduces the structure of the depiction through his overpaintings. The artist allows viewers to participate in his struggle with the figure and its meaning. The placement of the photograph on the whitewashed wooden background is a deliberate choice. Here, the Christ head is positioned at the upper edge of the image, providing Rainer with ample space during his exertion for softer color gradations to the right and left. In a few places within the photograph, particularly beneath the Christ head, he allows the paint to obey its own gravity. In this most absolute and free form of painting for Arnulf Rainer, a lava-like surface of dark red paint emerges, densely packed and seemingly breaking out from within him. Konrad Schmidt has roughly categorized Rainer’s overpaintings into three stages: the lightly touched photographs, those “grasped with a part of the original expression”, and those with “rigorous negation and destruction of the historical artifact”. Our work allows a part of the original expression to speak; the eye of Christ gazes unwaveringly and intensely from the swirling chaos. AGT
Baden near Vienna 1929 – lives in Enzenkirchen and Tenerife
Christus-Übermalung. 1983/84
Oil over photograph on cardboard on panel. 102 × 72,5 cm
(40 ⅛ × 28 ½ in.). Signed in pencil lower right: A. Rainer. With a label of Gallery m, Bochum on the reverse. [3068] Framed
Provenance
Private Collection, Rhineland/Berlin (acquired at Galerie m, Bochum)
Arnulf Rainer. Fingermalereien. Christ – Frauen – Tote. Bochum, Galerie m, 1984, ill. p. 61
Literature and illustration
H.-L.-Alexander v. Berswordt-Wallrabe (ed.): Arnulf Rainer. Fingermalerein, 1975-1984, Christ-Frauen-Tote, 1982-1984. Bochum, m Bochum, Galerie für Film, Foto, Neue Konkrete Kunst und Video, 1984, ill. p. 61.
In 1980, Arnulf Rainer began to overpaint photographs depicting the face of the suffering Christ. In 1983, the year he started this particular work, he intensified his focus on Christs heads. Rainer calls his approach “art on art,” in which he circles, frames, gesturally covers, and physically engages with the motif mounted on a light background.
Rainer himself describes his highly active and energetic process as follows: “It is not a passive experience but an active struggle. When I paint, it involves great effort, concentration, and exertion. Often, I have laid down on the studio floor and fallen asleep from exhaustion. Creative exhaustion and being exhausted are interconnected.”
His Christ overpaintings are created entirely without tools, using only his fingers. In his circular movements around the head, he reintroduces the structure of the depiction through his overpaintings. The artist allows viewers to participate in his struggle with the figure and its meaning. The placement of the photograph on the whitewashed wooden background is a deliberate choice. Here, the Christ head is positioned at the upper edge of the image, providing Rainer with ample space during his exertion for softer color gradations to the right and left. In a few places within the photograph, particularly beneath the Christ head, he allows the paint to obey its own gravity. In this most absolute and free form of painting for Arnulf Rainer, a lava-like surface of dark red paint emerges, densely packed and seemingly breaking out from within him. Konrad Schmidt has roughly categorized Rainer’s overpaintings into three stages: the lightly touched photographs, those “grasped with a part of the original expression”, and those with “rigorous negation and destruction of the historical artifact”. Our work allows a part of the original expression to speak; the eye of Christ gazes unwaveringly and intensely from the swirling chaos. AGT
