Raphael Rubinstein

In recent decades, there has been a proliferation of artists who, in shunning technical virtuosity, have produced works that challenge the very definition of painting. Enormous canvases overflowing with smudges and failed attempts bear witness to an intense struggle with the medium. Works of modest dimensions are further diminished by an uncertain hand and a sloppy style. Others still opt for self-sabotage, concealing their content behind torn canvases. Why on earth should painters sign paintings doomed to failure? Perhaps to free art from the yoke of the market and the expectations that have weighed upon painting for centuries.Artists such as Albert Oehlen, Mary Heilmann, David Hammons, Christopher Wool, Michael Krebber and Raoul De Keyser choose the path of impermanence, moving away not only from the idea of the ‘masterpiece’, but also from any semblance of completion. After all, Cézanne, with his tormented reinterpretations of Mont Sainte-Victoire, or Giacometti, with his unfinished portraits, already demonstrated a certain distrust of the finished work. The history of modern art is studded with acts of negation, of radical rejection: an attitude that finds resonance in Asian arts and philosophies, where the “unfinished” is perceived not as a flaw but as a quality to be appreciated and sought after.In the essays collected here – published from 2009 onwards – Raphael Rubinstein traces a genealogy of ‘provisional painting’ and explores an art capable of asserting its own transience as an authentic value.Afterword by Luca Bertolo