NEW YORK—The Paula Cooper Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new work by internationally acclaimed artist Rudolf Stingel. The exhibition will be on view from February 20 through March 21, 2009.

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 authorship.

Rudolf Stingel’s work has been exhibited in prominent exhibitions both nationally and internationally. Most recently, it was the subject of Rudolf Stingel: Paintings 1987–2007, a mid-career retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. In 2004, the artist installed Plan B, an industrially-printed pink and blue floral carpet covering the entire floor of Grand Central Terminal’s Vanderbilt Hall. Previous museum shows have included one-person exhibitions at the Museo d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Trento, Italy (2001) and the Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt (2004). Rudolf Stingel participated in the 2008 Carnegie International; the 2006 Whitney Biennial and in exhibitions at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis. Abroad, his work was included in the 1999 and 2003 Venice Biennales; Rooseum Center for Contemporary Art, Malmö, Sweden; and in Sequence 1 at the Palazzo Grassi, Venice. Rudolf Stingel was born in 1956 in Merano, Italy and lives and works in New York City and Italy.

For more information, please contact the gallery: (212) 255-1105 or
info@paulacoopergallery.com