Arnulf Rainer. Nothing against everything

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Arnulf Rainer will celebrate his 95th birthday on December 8, 2024. He is considered a pioneer of Informel in Europe and is one of the most internationally important contemporary artists. The Arnulf Rainer Museum in Baden is using this anniversary as an opportunity to comprehensively honor the multi-layered oeuvre of the world artist with a three-year exhibition cycle.

The exhibition kicks off on November 23rd: Arnulf Rainer. Nothing against everything. Curated by Nikolaus scratch, head of the art collection of the state of Lower Austria, and the art collector Helmut Zambo.

The anniversary show puts two special groups of works in the spotlight: the earliest works from the 1940s and 1950s as well as the central group of works of cross-overpainting, which Rainer has worked on continuously since the 1950s.

The series of Big crosses illustrates how the artist uses drypoint etching to consistently work on a plate over a longer period of time. The monumental cross-paintings are among the highlights of his work. They embody the deep dualism of creation and destruction, fullness and emptiness.

With finger painting or overpainted photographic self-portraits, Rainer inscribes himself into his works. This is how he shows himself in his great work on the cross Self-burial or Christ-suffering, Christ-joy? as a martyr drowning in paint – interpreted as a reference to the painful path to the creative act.

Layer by layer of paint, image by image, the artist works through the connections between creation and destruction, beginning and end, death and resurrection. His drive for perfection creates works that radiate a unique, profound power, although the original image motif usually remains hidden from the viewer.

The following groups of works are compared to the monumental crosses:
Surrealist phase, early etchings, cross etchings, early monochrome overpaintings, blind drawings, vertical and central designs as well as a selection The finger painting and Body Poseswhich address the theme of the cross.

The title of the exhibition – Nothing against everything – is borrowed from Rainer’s early text Perspectives on Annihilation from 1951.

One choice: silence
against poetry, the loss
against the possession, the disposal
entity against yourself.
Death versus life.
The other against the world.
Nothing against everything.

This reflects not only Rainer’s dialectical working method, but also his claim to touch the foundations of human existence with his art.

Curator Nikolaus scratch about the exhibition: Simple explanations don’t get you very far with Arnulf Rainer’s art; on the contrary, you miss the ambiguity, the paradoxes and Rainer’s dialectics taken to extremes. There’s only one thing that helps – look at the works.

Helmut Zambo Collection

As part of this anniversary exhibition, the Arnulf Rainer Museum is presenting for the first time part of the top-class Zambo collection, which was transferred to the care of the State Collections of Lower Austria in the summer of 2024. The donation includes the core of his collection, which he has compiled over decades, and represents a significant gain for the Lower Austria State Collections.

The focus of this large donation is on works by Arnulf Rainer. After Helmut Zambo accompanied the artist throughout his life as a collector, central works from all creative periods can be found here and over time the most important Arnulf Rainer collection in the world was created.

Helmut Zambo about Arnulf Rainer: Someone once said about my relationship with Arnulf Rainer: He is your Messiah and you are his disciple. For me he is a genius and one of the greatest artists ever.

In addition, Helmut Zambo is also involved as a supporter of various museum institutions in Lower Austria. For his services and support activities, he will be awarded the Austrian Cross of Honor for Science and Art, First Class, by Governor Johanna Mikl-Leitner at the exhibition opening on November 23, 2024.

15 years of the Arnulf Rainer Museum

The Arnulf Rainer Museum is also celebrating its 15th anniversary with the anniversary exhibition. The artist’s diverse oeuvre has been presented in over 20 exhibitions to date. In addition to monographic exhibitions, Rainer’s significance for contemporary art is also revealed through comparisons with artistic personalities such as Georg Baselitz and Damien Hirst.

Outlook: exhibition cycle

The focus of the second exhibition from autumn 2025 is on Arnulf Rainer and Art Brut. The last show of the three-year exhibition cycle puts Rainer’s work in dialogue with Hermann Nitsch.

Duration of the exhibition:
23.11.2024 – 5.10.2025

Curators:
Nikolaus scratch and Helmut Zambo

Publication:
The volume is published on the occasion of Arnulf Rainer’s 95th birthday Arnulf Rainer. Nothing against everything. It presents 95 works by the artist from the Zambo collection. With an art historical essay by Nikolaus scratch on Rainer’s entire oeuvre and a detailed exhibition directory.

Press area:
www.arnulf-rainer-museum.at/presse

Press photos:
https://celum.noeku.at/pinaccess/showpin.do?pinCode=ohyVERpiMZpL

Press photos for the exhibition opening on Saturday, November 23rd / 11 a.m
are available from November 23rd/5 p.m.:
https://celum.noeku.at/pinaccess/pinaccess.do?pinCode=wduGkN1131cA