This exhibition marks Klaus Rinke’s return to Italy after his ground-breaking exhibitions in the 1970’s at the Toselli gallery in Milan and the L’Attico Gallery in Rome.
The exhibition includes a series of large-format paintings on canvas which seem to seek to define their volume in space. The essence of the paintings evokes the archetypal feminine first evident in the artist’s works dating back to the 1960’s. The feminine has markedly influenced Rinke’s artworks, as visible in the pictorial ground on which he has worked, as well as in his early performances: “Masculin-Feminine.” The feminine erotic archetype is emphasized by employing the repetition of the artist’s iconic feminine forms. This repetition of line and form becomes a means for the artist to define the pictorial space, creating a melding of content and desire. The large format of the canvas lends itself to the concretization of the dreamlike constructions which have laid fallow in the artist's mind. Klaus Rinke is one of the world’s pre-eminent artists. His work has served to define the scope of the European avant-garde, from drawing, painting and sculpture, to photography and performance. Rinke has continued to challenge his personal artistic expression, succeeding in keeping the same innovative force throughout his entire career. He has constantly renewed his artistic activity, from the photographic works and object installations which captivated the international art world in the ‘60’s, to the recent paintings where shape and color function as a paradigm of innovation. His poetic vision emphasizes the ties which bind and define the precarious relationship between the individual and the outside world. Rinke’s existential search has taken him into into a research of time, space and ultimately, to a confrontation with man's place in the universe.
