Arnulf Rainer *
(Baden near Vienna 1929–2025 Enzenkirchen, Upper Austria)
Untitled, c. 1977, from the series: „Frauensprache“, photo reworking, monogrammed R, oil, oil calk, graphite on photo, 29.4 x 23 cm, framed
Provenance:
Galerie Ruberl, Vienna
Collection, Berlin
Dorotheum, Vienna, 1 July 2017, lot 559.
Illustrated:
Arnulf Rainer, 25.700,54 cm2, catalogue, Galerie Ruberl, Vienna, full-page color ill.
… In his subsequent actions, Rainer – in contrast, for example, to Günter Brus or Otto Mühl – avoids the confrontation with the actual physical body and moves the discussion instead to the media level. While in the series “Face Farces” and “Body Poses” he photographed himself, he resorts to found picture material when examining the idea of femininity. He uses photographs and reproductions from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, among them pictures from a wide range of social milieus of the nineteen-twenties and fifties, and owns up to his preference for acrobats, whom he calls contortionists. “The photos of the snake woman touched me so much that I intervened by way of various graphic corrections and tried to transform unique performances into picture blossoms. This was the first deliberate step away from using myself towards using ladies as dummies for the overdrawings.” Rainer explained in 1988.
Rainer’s women, pictures from the series “Frauensprache” (created in the nineteen – seventies and eighties), are based mainly on sexualized nudes, such as the pin-ups of naked women’s bodies in erotic positions or pornographic poses of submission.
Excerpt from:
Andrea Madesta, “She smiles just for me”, in: Klaus Thoman (ed.), Rainer and the women, Snoeck, Innsbruck 2013
Specialist: Mag. Barbara Freisitzer
(Baden near Vienna 1929–2025 Enzenkirchen, Upper Austria)
Untitled, c. 1977, from the series: „Frauensprache“, photo reworking, monogrammed R, oil, oil calk, graphite on photo, 29.4 x 23 cm, framed
Provenance:
Galerie Ruberl, Vienna
Collection, Berlin
Dorotheum, Vienna, 1 July 2017, lot 559.
Illustrated:
Arnulf Rainer, 25.700,54 cm2, catalogue, Galerie Ruberl, Vienna, full-page color ill.
… In his subsequent actions, Rainer – in contrast, for example, to Günter Brus or Otto Mühl – avoids the confrontation with the actual physical body and moves the discussion instead to the media level. While in the series “Face Farces” and “Body Poses” he photographed himself, he resorts to found picture material when examining the idea of femininity. He uses photographs and reproductions from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, among them pictures from a wide range of social milieus of the nineteen-twenties and fifties, and owns up to his preference for acrobats, whom he calls contortionists. “The photos of the snake woman touched me so much that I intervened by way of various graphic corrections and tried to transform unique performances into picture blossoms. This was the first deliberate step away from using myself towards using ladies as dummies for the overdrawings.” Rainer explained in 1988.
Rainer’s women, pictures from the series “Frauensprache” (created in the nineteen – seventies and eighties), are based mainly on sexualized nudes, such as the pin-ups of naked women’s bodies in erotic positions or pornographic poses of submission.
Excerpt from:
Andrea Madesta, “She smiles just for me”, in: Klaus Thoman (ed.), Rainer and the women, Snoeck, Innsbruck 2013
Specialist: Mag. Barbara Freisitzer
