Arnulf Rainer

Exhibited by W&K-Wienerroither & Kohlbacher

Material Oil on cardbord

Dimensions 73 × 102 cm

Place of Creation Austria

Status Vetted

About the Work

‘Flower Hands’ belongs to that phase in the 1970s during which Arnulf Rainer consistently used his own body as both a painting tool and a pictorial motif, thereby transforming his overpaintings into a radically gestural form of body painting. Created in 1975, this oil painting on cardboard (73 × 102 cm) depicts two fan-shaped, red-smeared hand and fingerprints that shoot upwards, growing like floral forms from the lower edge of the picture whilst simultaneously evoking energetic, almost aggressive flinging movements.

What makes “Blumenhände” special is the tension between the poetic, almost delicate metaphor of the flower and the vehement gesture lashing across the cardboard, which makes the artist’s physical exertion immediately visible. The reduced colour palette, the focus on two symmetrical trajectories of movement, and the significant positioning of the signature as a horizon line at the bottom edge simultaneously distil the spontaneous action into a rigorously composed, iconic pictorial form.

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Provenance

Gallery Heike Curtze, Vienna;
Private collection, Vienna.

Literature

- A. Rainer. Finger Paintings + Foot Paintings (1973 - 75), Exhibition catalogue, Stadler Gallery, Paris, 1976, ill. no. 29.
- C. Aigner, J. Gachnang, H. Zambo (Ed.): Arnulf Rainer. Abgrundtiefe. Perspektive. Retrospektive 1947-1997, Verlag Christian Brandstätter, Vienna-Munich, ill. p. 181.