In Memory Of Rainer: Confronting The Image

Arnulf Rainer, 1929–2025

Austrian artist Arnulf Rainer, known for his 'overpainting' technique, has passed away.

From the 1950s onward, Rainer painted over both his own works and those of others. It began out of financial necessity: "I had no money, so I bought old paintings from flea markets—they were cheaper than new canvases."

The death of Arnulf Rainer (1929–2025) is not merely the loss of an artist; it is the reopening of one of modern and contemporary art's most unsettling questions:

When is an image complete, and by whom?

What Rainer leaves behind are not "overpainted" pictures, but surfaces that demand to be thought over. He took seriously not art history's reverence for the image, but the burden the image carries. His practice was therefore not an act of vandalism, but a form of confrontation. Rainer did not paint; he suppressed, covered, wounded, withdrew. And this withdrawal made the viewer an active witness.

Today, rereading the joint exhibition with Damien Hirst immediately following Rainer's death sharpens this witnessing even further.

Reproducing Over What Exists: Parasite or Resistance?

Rainer's practice was often described as "intervention upon existing works." This definition is incomplete. What is at stake here is not addition, but the creation of tension.

In nature, a parasite consumes its host.
In Rainer's work, the underlying image does not die; it resists.

Photographs, prints, his own old works, or historical images... For Rainer, these were not sacred starting points but surfaces to be reckoned with. His scribbles were not meant to hide the underlying image, but to remind us it is still there. The viewer confronts not what they see, but what they don't see.

In this sense, Rainer's work is neither makeup nor correction. Rather, it is a systematic objection to art's claim of "completeness."

Beyond Deconstruction: The Ethics of Incompleteness

To read Rainer purely as a deconstructivist falls short. He reconstructs while destroying; he reveals while covering. This dual movement powerfully intersects with Umberto Eco's concept of the Open Work.

Rainer's works:

·       Do not propose a single meaning

·       Do not present a closed aesthetic

·       Do not reduce the viewer to a passive receiver

Instead, they invite the viewer to excavate. This excavation is not physical, but mental. Rainer's surfaces are areas that refuse completion. They are not a result, but a process.

Here, art ceases to be an object; it becomes an ethical stance.

Side by Side with Hirst: Representation of Death or Contact with Death?

The consideration of Damien Hirst and Rainer within the same exhibition context is not coincidental. Both artists are concerned with death; but from entirely opposite directions.

Hirst presents death in a vitrine, objectifies it, freezes it.
Rainer keeps death alive on the surface; he wounds, suppresses, recalls.

This opposition asks us: Can death be represented, or can it only be thought about through exposure to it?

Rainer's answer is clear: Death is not shown, it leaves traces. His paintings are carriers of these traces.

The most powerful legacy Rainer leaves to art history is this:

Respect for the image is possible not by preserving it, but by taking it seriously enough to disturb it.

Today, in an age dominated by digital reproduction and flawless aesthetics, if Rainer's works remain unsettling, it is precisely because of this. He disrupted the comfort of the image. He saw art not as a showcase, but as a site of conflict.

For Collecist, remembering Rainer is not a nostalgic gesture of respect. It is keeping alive a question that contemporary art still holds open:

Does art exist to beautify the world, or to ensure we do not avoid seeing it as it is?

Arnulf Rainer did not answer this question.
But he made it impossible for us to ignore it.

S.Ç. Özkefeli
January 4, 2026