Art I like - Rudolf Stingel

This piece, happened upon in the quest for whatever-it-was, interested me because of its use of line -

It seems to be about .... nothing ... a monochrome  - but with undertones perhaps?

Whereas there's definitely an agenda with this (large) untitled piece from 2007 (which, incidentally, sold for over £300K) -

Three such gold-on-gold paintings were shown at the Whitney Museum in 2007 - in a room with a mirrored floor. Stingel says: ‘Artists have always been accused of being decorators, so I just went to the extreme and painted the wallpaper.' He 'presents us with a lavishly influenced rococo painting done in gold oil paint, creating a visual effect questioning the perfection of the Damask pattern and the distinctive expectation of the medium. Texture, composition and design, all loosely yet meticulously rendered onto the canvas, make this a signature piece for Stingel's contemporary artworks.'

From what it says about a 1989 work on the Saatchi site, he can fall into the 'relational aesthetics' camp: 'Though Rudolph Stingel’s work isn’t presented on traditional canvases he is a painter in the purest sense. Through his instructional photographs and installations, his work explores the essence of making, gesture, and expression through questioning authenticity and authorship. Often inviting the audience to interact with his work, Stingel promulgates the artistic process, allowing his artworks to develop as public ‘collaborations’. Through reconsidering the appreciation of aesthetics as a relational experience, Stingel challenges ideas of cultural hierarchy, modes of production, and the mythology of the artist.' [a laudable agenda, I think!]

A recent article in Frieze magazine says: 'Rudolf Stingel has made a career dancing around the idea of painting. He skirts its authority by looking at its components, its physical identity, its visual language and its history. Representation, abstraction, process, pattern, performance, subjectivity and the audience are all his subjects.'