KUNSTFORUM Vol. 142 October - December 1998 International Reinhard Ermen Rudolf de Crignis Colour Paintings Galerie S65 Aalst (Belgium), 9/12 - 10/24/1998 (Deutsch) The actual process of painting is preceded by intensive preparations. Again and again, square canvases are primed with white, sanded down and primed again until a precise, spotless body is achieved, resembling a block of chalk as the edges are treated the same way as the actual painting surface. Onto this Rudolf de Crignis (a Swiss who has lived in New York for the last 10 years) places thin, glazing layers of blue, or rather ultramarine: a sequence that is occasionally interrupted by veils of other colors. One painting for example - to which the intelligently made catalogue (text by Sabine Müller) is devoted exclusively - is constructed with ultramarine blue, zinc white and finally a layer of citron-yellow. But the elaborate process of painting - which may place as many as 38 layers on the ground and extend over a period of several weeks - always returns to ultramarine. For the image-cultivating Ives Klein blue (=IKB) was a vehicle, a door to the transcendental, but de Criginis's paintings are hardly reminiscent of his work, as they revolve too much around the stubbornness of painting as a medium. Its (inevitable) transcendence is recruited less from the one dominant hue (the effects of which have their own history of interpretation), but rather from the process or passage which as compressed time co-produces the material effect without being intrusive. Much is comprised in these paintings, with which the painter has been preoccupied for the last six years. The beautiful precision, or to put it differently: an intuitively correct treatment with intellectual guidelines holds the overwhelming blue together. The color almost appears to be swimming on the chalky block, it may even overflow its banks as a discrete trace indicates on the chalk base which mediates between wall and painting. There is never a simulation of massive heaviness though and there is no question that the block is a stretcher wrapped by the canvas. Lightness is one of the naturally co-occuring characteristics of this style of painting which can breathe freely - figuratively speaking. The various glazing veils permit and make possible the view to the bottom of the painting without revealing the silky shimmering relief with its gentle, exact brush movements. In a way the eye follows the light which by day opens up entire areas of color and causes a vibration of the contrasting layers of other colors. Still, the great ultramarine miracle is never in danger. The intent of these paintings is not at all new but by an extreme power of con centration, radical limitation and classical balance are successfully combined in them. Such a thing is rare enough in contemporary art, even though painting - often written off - ought to be predestined to these kind of syntheses. Here, the timelessly radicalized classicity goes so far as to make the omnipresent blue forget itself (at times). When comparing the paintings which are practically devoid of any hierarchies - apart from the different masses - the contrasting layers of other colors suddenly become the all-distinguishing factor and de Crignis repeatedly speaks of "green", "yellow", or "red" paintings himself. Some time ago, "black" paintings - in this sense - existed as well. The conditio sine qua non (= ultramarine) dissolves in the community of almost identical individuals. But as soon as the observer is alone with one of these sensitive shapes, there is nothing else but blue. Overpowering without the esthetics of overpowering! Only the view of the frame, in those spots where layers of paint have overflown the banks, can prove that beneath this color, other forces were at work too. |