Information Sheet

ARNULF RAINER

New Works on Paper

31 March until 30 July 2017
Content

Exhibition Facts ………………………………………………………………………….. 3

Press Text …………………………………………………………………………………… 4

Biography .……………………………………………………………………………………. 5

Press Images…………………………………………………………………………………… 6

Exhibition Facts

Exhibition Title Arnulf Rainer. New Works on Paper

Exhibition Period 31 March until 30 July 2017

Opening Thursday, 30 March 2017, 7 pm

Press Conference Thursday, 30 March 2017, 11:30 am

Exhibition Venue LENTOS Kunstmuseum Linz, Basement

Curators/Concept Rudi Fuchs, Maarthen Bertheux

Exhibits The exhibition presents 140 untitled watercolour paintings originated from 2015 to 2016

Publication The exhibition is accompanied by the catalogue Arnulf Rainer. Metamorphoses is published for the exhibition with texts by Rudi Fuchs and a foreword by Elisabeth Nowak-Thaller. Ed. Arnulf Rainer Museum. Cologne 2017, € 28

Contact Ernst-Koref-Promenade 1, 4020 Linz, Tel. +43(0)732/7070-3600; , www.lentos.at

Opening Hours Tue–Sun 10 am to 6 pm, Thur 10 am to 9 pm, Mon closed

Admission € 8; concessions € 6

Press Contact Clarissa Ujvari, T +43(0)732.7070.3603,

Available at the Press Conference:

Doris Lang-Mayerhofer, Commissioner of Cultural Affairs for the City of Linz

Elisabeth Nowak-Thaller, Interim Director of the Museum

Rudi Fuchs, Curator

Press Text

Rainer, contradictory, complex, a master of provocation, is as sprightly as ever at 88, and mischievousness lights up his eyes. His most recent aquarelles are intense in color, wild, beautiful, and full of magic. They are vivacious, seem more gentle, and like many late works they reveal an extraordinary lightness. Rainer overpaints and hides nothing more. All that lies below, which once sent the artist into a state of frenzy, has dissolved. With poetic serenity and precision, the maverick conjures virtuoso color tones and emotional force lines in creative connections. The works on paper, created in series most recently in Tenerife, Vienna and Upper Austria, are endless experiments in color, light, gestures, and dynamics. They depict a new freedom and the contrary fundamental principles in Rainer’s art: the gesturally expressive or the calmly meditative. All the works shown in the exhibition are Untitled and were created between 2015 and 2016. In the LENTOS show the works on paper are shown for the first time in an exhibition.

ARNULF RAINER AND THE ART MUSEUM LENTOS

The artist has already been welcomed with a solo show all of three times in the New Gallery of the City of Linz – now LENTOS Kunstmuseum Linz. The Collection of the City of Linz holds 86 works by Arnulf Rainer, including drawings, print graphic works, photo overpaintings, and paintings. The most recent acquisition by the association LENTOS Friends, Cross with a Hidden Angel’s Wing by Arnulf Rainer from 1998, was purchased last year and has since then been presented in the exhibition The Collection. Classics, Discoveries and New Positions in LENTOS. In addition, 12 works by the artist can be seen in the current exhibition Psycho Drawing. Art brut and the 60s and 70s in Austria.

Biography

Arnulf Rainer, born 1929 in Baden, Lower Austria, is regarded as the founder of Art informel in Austria. His overpaintings of grimacing photos and bodypainting already made him internationally famous starting in the 1970s. Close collaboration with artist colleagues such as Dieter Roth.

Participation in the documenta 5, 6, and 7 and the Venice Biennale 1978. He was awarded the Grand Austrian State Prize in the same year. 1981 Professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and member of the Academy of Arts in Berlin. 1989 Retrospective at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. In honor of the artist of the century, in 2009 the Arnulf Rainer Museum was opened in Baden. A major Arnulf Rainer Retrospective took place in the Albertina Vienna in 2014/2015. During most of the year Arnulf Rainer lives and works in Upper Austria. In the winter the artist moves his residence to the island of Tenerife.

Press Images

Press Images available for download at www.lentos.at.

Free use of press images only in conjunction with the relevant exhibition.