Rudolf Stingel
Designed to coincide with a career retrospective first shown at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, this book collects the work that has certified painter and conceptual artist Rudolf Stingel as a groundbreaker, someone as concerned with exploring the process of painting as he is the act itself. Employing materials such as Styrofoam, carpet or rubber, in addition to oil and enamel, his works are often iconoclastic image; the book sparse text allows the images to speak largely for themselves, and what they say can be difficult to decipher. Three essays in the front shed some light: Whitney curator Chrissie Iles discusses Stingel's influences, motivations and materials, "what Yve-Alain Bois describes as internalizing...the very technology threatening painting." Editor Bonami contributes an essay that illumines the context of Stingel's work, but gets lofty and vague at times, as in Stingel's "understanding that painting carries energy and consumes it, and abstraction happens when the power goes off momentarily." Reiner Zettl explores the texture and meaning of installation pieces, like Stingel carpeting the lobby of Grand Central Station in 2004. Beautifully produced, the images that make up the better part of the volume are lavishly spaced, a succesful effort at replicating the museum experience. 102 color illustrations.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.