The Paula Cooper Gallery is pleased to present a new series of paintings by Rudolf Stingel, installed in an intense, color-saturated environment created by the artist. The exhibition will be on view from the 15th of January through the 22nd of February, 1997.

Stingel’s abstract paintings consist of oils in pure, brilliant colors exuberantly splayed, dripped, pressed, and pulled across a black field. Like Stingel’s previous series of paintings, a fabric screen is used as a template to apply the oil to the surface. The paintings read as passionate, expressive abstractions, but in fact are created as much by the process as by the artist’s design, a level of ironic intention that is consistently present in Stingel’s work.

Earlier, Stingel made shimmering, multi-layered paintings that acted as visual illusions, alternating between opaque and transparent, flat and textured. In a moment’s oblique view, one could catch a reading of the intensely colored underpainting in many of the works. In the new paintings in the exhibition, Stingel has unmasked the canvas, defogged the surface, and revealed the body beneath. Each work is a dazzling color (fluorescent orange, bright sky blue, magenta, or lime green) that sweep across the surface, dynamically patterned and fully vibrant against the darkened background.

Similarly, the installation components — hot red and pink carpet, shiny gold mylar, baby blue “screens”— are direct and immediate, and create an environment saturated and radiant with color. Illusions exist in reflection, in viewing parts of the exhibition through off-registered elements, in patterns and colors echoed from place to place. Entering the exhibition, one leaves daylight behind, and ventures forth into a world of heightened visual stimulation.

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