Rudolf STINGEL – affordable… 15 years ago

Visitors to a Rudolf STINGEL exhibition will no doubt remember his talent for mise-en-scène; in a New York gallery he installed a huge bright orange carpet; in New York’s Whitney Museum and Chicago’s MCA the walls were completely covered in metallic Celotex insulation board; at François Pinault’s Palazzo Grassi he covered the entire palace in huge Persian rugs. These dazzling settings provide the backdrop for his works. In short, Stingel uses the entire space offered by an exhibition to create a different view of his art… and to seduce collectors.

During the first semester of 2015, twenty works by Stingel appeared at auction and only one failed to sell. In price terms, Stingel’s works are rising fast: last May he reached a new auction record of $4.7million twice in the same week¹.

Moreover, the market is not particularly focused on any specific period and has demonstrated strong demand for all his work over the last 35 years. There was an initial abstract period in the 1980s and 1990s, then the sparkling white mountains and glaciers of his youth in Northern Italy, and then his large format canvases in colour. However, collectors are equally enthusiastic about his hyper-realist paintings, imbued with melancholy, created in the 2000s, sometimes in much smaller formats. Lastly, the market also likes his recent canvases, on the borderline with sculpture, employing materials such as gold and copper.

However, Rudolf STINGEL’s success on the secondary market was by no means immediate. Before 2007, when he exhibited at Chicago’s MCA and New York’s Whitney Museum (two of the best windows on the Contemporary art scene), and despite the fact that his talent was already largely recognised by art professionals, his auction prices remained very subdued.

In 1989, the young Rudolf joined the powerful Milan gallery of Massimo De Carlo. Two years later, he caused a sensation in New York with a bright orange floor carpet at the Daniel Newburg gallery. The exhibition attracted the attention of numerous art critics. Three years later, Paula Cooper exhibited his work in Manhattan.

He participated in the Venice Biennial in 1999 and again in 2003, but in the auction rooms, none of his works fetched more than $15,000. Since then, things have considerably changed…

Whereas a canvas from the series Silver Mesh(1989) sold for $9,400in 2000², another very similar work fetched $900,000 in 2008³. After that result, his prices began a steep ascent. Untitled (1996) was initially acquired for $362,000 at Christie’s on 14 May 2009 and then resold for $1.7 million exactly six years later⁴, i.e. five times its initial price.

In fifteen years, Rudolf STINGEL’s market has acquired a totally different dimension. Paintings that fetched little more than $10,000 now sell for several millions. A series of unforgettable exhibitions (including the Palazzo Grassi during the 2013 Venice Biennial) and strong support from a number of powerful galleries have projected Stingel to the summit of the market. Today, collectors all over the world wish to acquire his works: between 2011 and 2015, the Gagosian gallery showed his work in New York, Paris and recently in Hong Kong.