Rudolf Stingel First recognized in the late 1980s for his monochromatic works, Rudolf Stingel has developed
a singular approach to painting that aims to examine and reinvigorate the very essence of two - dimensional visual expression in a post-modern environ.
As a student in 1949 at the Art Students League of New York, for example, he laid paper on the floor of the building's entrance
to capture the footprints of those entering and exiting.10 The creation of receptive surfaces on which
to record, collect, or index the direct imprint of elements from the real world is especially central
to the artist's pre-1955 works.11 Leo Steinberg's celebrated 1972 article «Reflections on the State of Criticism» isolated this particular
approach to surface as collection point as the
singular contribution of Rauschenberg's works of the early 1950s, one which galvanized a new position within postwar art. 12 Steinberg coined the term «flatbed picture plane»
to account for this radical shift, through which «the
painted surface is no longer the analogue of a visual experience of nature but of operational processes.»