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Description: Arnulf Rainer *(born 1929 in Baden near Vienna) "Self-Overdrawing", Face Farces, signed and dated A. Rainer 69/70, oil and oil crayon on photograph, 49.5 x 40 cm, framed, (K)Provenance: Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Salzburg (with a label on the reverse); private property, GermanyI'm not a painter, poet, sportsman, cineaste, or philosopher, but a showman. In my work I combine visual art with that of facial expression and gymnastics. For me, gesticulation, locomotion, and facial kinetics are not a game or elements of role-play or a ritual, but ends in themselves - they are the fundamental forms of communication of man (and numerous mammals). In order to document this body language in a static or moving image, I use photography and film. During these sessions I'm in a state of tension or nervous agitation. Afterwards, I'm disappointed by the rigid photographs. They document but very little. I feel urged to lend these pictures the dynamics and tension I felt during the photo sessions by painting on them. By drawing on them I accentuate the physical expression of my body and analyse movement and gestures in a graphic fashion... I'm agitated while I'm drawing, I speak to myself, make faces, swear at people; I move and transform myself constantly as a body, character, and person. I wanted to use these side effects of my work independently. Without denying my previous artistic production, which, besides overpainting, was predominantly devoted to drawing faces, I tried to resign from the genre of painting.However, the documentation of natural facial expressions took me back to creating two- dimensional objects, primarily when I was forced to correct the photographs with the pen because I needed stronger accentuation. Other than drawing, making faces did not provide me with any standard, just with potential identifications. Later on, through these graphic corrections, I dealt with familiar qualities again. Arnulf Rainer, 1971/72