Untitled

An old, worn photographic portrait of the artist, shirt open, lost in thought. What we do not see, however, is the medium because here the artist exclusively uses painting, reproducing the smallest detail with precision, down to the watermarks left by glasses on the original photograph. More than the gap between the monumental scale and the intimacy of the subject, it is first and foremost the hyperrealism of this painting that grabs us.

In this large, introspective self-portrait, the painter Rudolf Stingel delivers a form of modern vanity, reinforced by the photographic illusion and the presence of a number of alterations left by time. The psychological dimension of the subject takes precedence, despite the intensity and quality of the pictorial work. Once again, the artist's eloquent and masterful practice is demonstrated by reinvesting the ambiguous relationships between photography and painting.

Untitled was first exhibited by the Pinault Collection in 2013 at the Palazzo Grassi for the "Rudolf Stingel" show.