The oeuvre of Austrian artist Arnulf Rainer (*1929 in Vienna) has been unfolding since the fifties in an exciting dialogue between two poles, one representing a quiet, meditative way of painting, and the other, a sense of physically powerful expressivity that springs from rapid-fire acts of articulation. The paintings testify to the artist’s radical questioning of himself and his uncompromising analysis of what painting is.In celebration of his eightieth birthday, this catalogue presents a concentrated retrospective. It was produced in close collaboration with the artist and features only the works he retained for his personal collection—the essence of his oeuvre. The companion volume contains Rainer’s collected writings. Trenchant opinions blend factual information with inflammatory statements and thus counteract fossilized perceptions.