Backbone 1979

This print, Backbone, by Arnulf Rainer, is like a landscape of the body, rendered in furious, repetitive strokes of red. You can really see the artmaking here as a process, a kind of meditation, building up this dense field of energy. I’m drawn to how physical this work is, even though it's just on paper. The texture feels almost palpable, like you could run your fingers across it and feel the individual marks. Look at the way Rainer lets that lower edge dissolve into the white of the paper. It gives the sense of something emerging, or receding, like a memory. It’s this kind of attention to the edge, to the point where the mark meets the void, that makes Rainer's work so compelling. There's a kinship with artists like Cy Twombly, in that raw, expressive use of line, but Rainer brings something uniquely intense and visceral to the table. It’s a reminder that art doesn't have to be about answers, but about embracing the questions.