Dimensions: support: 1680 x 1030 mm frame: 1685 x 1035 x 40 mm
Copyright: © Arnulf Rainer | CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 DEED, Photo: Tate
Editor: This is Arnulf Rainer's "Wine Crucifix," its date is unknown, residing in the Tate Collections. The black paint dominating the canvas is striking. What do you make of the materiality in this work? Curator: I see a fascinating tension between the apparent spontaneity of the dripping paint and the deliberate act of layering and obscuring. Consider Rainer's process: how does this act of overpainting change the meaning of the underlying form, and what statement does it make about artistic production? Editor: So, it's less about the religious iconography and more about the act of creation and destruction? Curator: Precisely. It asks us to think about the labor involved, the materials used, and the artist's choices in manipulating those materials. This lens shifts the focus from the purely symbolic to the physical and social aspects of art-making. Editor: I see it now. Thanks for illuminating the materiality, it definitely changed my perspective. Curator: My pleasure. Thinking about the process and materials really enriches the experience.
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Wine-Crucifix was originally painted as an altar-piece for the Student Chapel of the Catholic University in Graz, Austria. It hung loosely, without a frame, across a large window. Light shining through the cloth would reveal the shape of a cross beneath layers of paint. The title of the work evokes the transformation of wine into the blood of Christ. After the work was removed from its religious setting in the mid-1960s, the artist bought it back and in 1978 decided to rework it. ‘I realised that the quality and truth of the picture only grew as it became darker and darker’, Rainer has explained. Gallery label, July 2008
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