Untitled (Death Mask) 1978

Editor: This is Arnulf Rainer's "Untitled (Death Mask)" from the Tate collection, a striking black and white drawing. The furious lines create a somewhat morbid mood, obscuring the facial features. What do you make of this piece? Curator: It feels like a frantic dance with mortality, doesn't it? Rainer, in his overpaintings, often grapples with these intense themes. I see a struggle—a layering of anxieties and perhaps a desperate attempt to understand something just beyond our grasp. Does it feel unresolved to you, too? Editor: Absolutely, it's unsettling! Curator: Yes, and it's in that discomfort where the work really lives. The act of obscuring, of adding layers, becomes a way of both confronting and concealing our fears. It is like life, itself! Editor: I see what you mean. Thanks, that’s really insightful. Curator: My pleasure! Art is nothing if not a conversation.