No.121 *

Arnulf Rainer
(born 1929 in Baden near Vienna) “Expressive-Dynamic (Ecstasy)”, 1952, from the series “Trials in the Darkness”, blind painting, seismography of a gesture, signed and dated on the reverse A. Rainer 52 and inscribed IX/9, grease crayon and oil on drawing board, 64.5 x 94.5 cm, framed, (K)

Reproduced in: Otto Breicha/Wieland Schmied, TRRR 1951/52, Arnulf Rainer - 17 frühe Arbeiten, Galerie Klewan 1994, fig. 14.
Provenance: ex Gerhard Rühm Collection; Galerie Klewan, Munich; private property, Vienna
There is something exemplary about Arnulf Rainer’s beginnings. The one who seeks the absolute cannot but start afresh. That is why Rainer, from the very beginning, has striven for a beginning that was meant to be the beginning of all beginnings. What he had in mind was a beginning preceding all beginnings, the beginning of all times, zero hour, zero point. A beginning that was also a radical restart of all art. But wherever he was looking for it, there was no foundation allowing him to undertake the impossible. Time and again he was overcome by the despair of not being able to start. Rainer writes: “In 1951 I first started to make drawings with my eyes closed. My confidence in hitherto existing art had faded. I found myself in a crisis, had reached the zero point. I didn’t know how to do it, what to do, and why. Something entirely new, something that had never been done seemed to be absolutely essential. … So I decided to discover something new by closing my eyes …” from: Wieland Schmied, Die Anfänge des Arnulf Raine

estimate €150.000,- to €180.000,-

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