Arnulf Rainer, TOD-DEATH, 1981
This is an exhibition catalogue of Austrian artist Arnulf Rainer from 1981. Arnulf Rainer’s artworks are haunting and energetic. Rainer overpainted various photographs of death masks, mummies and police pictures. He paints on them, rephotographs them, then paints again. These layers literally and creatively add new dimensions to the images. Rainer writes in his introduction:
Death masks are documents of man’s last opportunity for expression. They are portraits of (artistic) attitudes, the results of life’s last attempts of self-expression. Arnulf Rainer 1978
The catalogue is divided into the following chapters:
TOTENMASKEN – DEATH MASKS
TOTENGESICHTER – IMAGES OF DEATH
MUMIEN – MUMMIES
TOTENKÖPFE – SKULLS
Many of the photographs used by Rainer are taken from the book: Atlas der gerichtlichen Medizin (Atlas of forensic medicine), 1963 by Waldemar Weimann & Otto Prokop (editors).
A great document of the work of an extraordinary artist.
Published by Galerie Ulysses Wien 1981.
Soft cover
38 pages
22 x 23.9cm