Rudolf Stingel

Rudolf Stingel was born in 1956 in Merano, Italy, and currently resides and works between New York and Merano. Stingel is renowned as a conceptual artist, particularly recognised for his installations that envelop exhibition spaces with monochrome carpets. Rising to prominence in the late 1980s, Stingel initially gained recognition for his monochromatic silver paintings, which incorporated tones of red, yellow, or blue. In 1989, Stingel introduced Instructions , a manual available in multiple languages detailing the process behind creating his silver paintings - abstract canvases characterized by undertones of red, yellow, or blue. During the 1990s, Stingel embarked on producing Abstract paintings by first applying a single colour onto the canvas and then spraying silver paint through pieces of gauze. Similarly, his works on paper employ a comparable technique, applying oil paint through tulle. Many of Stingel’s prints and installations challenge the traditional notion of authorship in art, highlighting the democratic and collaborative nature of the artistic process. His diverse installations incorporate a wide array of materials, including Styrofoam, carpet, and cast polyurethane. Notably, for his retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago in 2007, Stingel adorned the walls with metallic Celotex, encouraging visitors to inscribe the soft surface, thereby blurring the lines between artist and audience interaction. Stingel’s work is held in numerous public collections including the François Pinault Collection Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin; the Museion – Museo d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Bolzano; the MAXXI – Museo Nazionale delle Arti del XXI Secolo, Rome; the Beyeler Foundation, Basel; the Tate Modern, London; the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago; the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville; De la Cruz Collection, Miami; the Harvard Art Museum, Cambridge; the MOCA - Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; MoMA – Museum of Modern Art, New York; the The Broad, Los Angeles; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.