Rudolf Stingel is an artist who focuses on exploring the relationship between art, space, and the viewer. He wants his installations to be interactive; to evoke emotion and depth of thought.

Palazzo Grassi is divided into 40 rooms and has 5,000 square meters of exhibition floor. The 2013 the show by Rudolf Stingel was a solo exhibition in which Stingel aimed to create an experience which draws upon the history of the city of Venice via a space which was built in the 16th century and passed through the hands of many noble families before being purchased in 2005 for use as a space to exhibit art.

His synthetic rendition of antique carpet is fabricated in larger than life scale, and covers every surface of every room in the building, playing with the various scales of his contemporary artworks, which stand out from the hues of the backdrop via their grey, white, and black palette in the same way that the openings of the building frame views of the city.

The exhibit touches on Sigmund Freud’s early 20th Century Viennese study with the exhibit of art suggesting presences that are ‘buried’ in memory, and removed experiences that thrive again. The carpet design itself replicates one of the carpets on the floor of Sigmund Freud’s study.

*Photo credit: Stefan Altenburger.