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Arnulf Rainer By Mark Mauboules:





By Mark Mauboules:
Arnulf is an Austrian artist, born in 1929. He explores painting, printmaking and photography. His art career began in the 40’s and he is self taught. Exploring media such as drypoint, etching, lithography and screenprinting, he latched on to surrealism. Suspicious of rationality, Arnulf investigates themes of dreams, madness and the subconscious in his works. Arnulf Rainer’s artwork features elements of suprise, combining dreams and fantasy to everyday reality, forming a “surreal-ality”.
With these ideas and beliefs in hand, he co-founded the Hundsgruppe ( Dog Troupe). They were a group of artists, writers and performance artists whose beliefs meshed well with his. A year later, he struck out on his own and started expirimenting with destrucion of forms: blackening, overpainting and maskings of illustrations and photographs. These images dominate his later works up to present time. He created works based on the Hiroshima bombing of WWII. Under drug influence, he expirimented with body art painting in the 60’s and 70’s. He held a professorship position from 81 to 95 at the Academy Of Fine Arts In Austria, the same academy he dropped out of after only three days in his younger years. In 1993 the Arnulf Rainer Museum opened in New York City. Located in the Chelsea district of lower manhattan, it has more than 150 pieces of art in it’s catalog. I was drawn to his work because of his exploration of life and death, crucifiction and christ images. These images he chose to express made me think, “ What lies beyond our material world? What other planes of existence may we someday experience? I have recently been exploring meditation into my subconscious and have become a believer in spirituality. By destruction of forms of faith, I believe he is not negating them or making them obsolete. He is merely deconstructing them to make them more personal, less public. It becomes more accessable and comfortable for him, less presentational. That is what true spirituality and religion is about, embracing it, only taking from it what works for you personally in a positive way. 

http://fakeexpressionsoftheunkown.wordpress.com/2009/02/25/wine-crucifix-a-painting-by-arnulf-rainer/

http://moma.org/collection/artist.php?artist_id=4792
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