Anna Rettl constructs her paintings as a complex series of grafts from historical works of art. Her compositions accumulate and dismember her sources, which span from medieval depictions of mobs and Baroque representations of Christian saints to Romantic allegorical depictions of the virtues, stitching them together anew, like revived transplants. Rettl is interested in the tradition of painting, how specific iconographies have been repeated over time, and why certain gestures, figures, and compositions keep appearing and reappearing. For Reigen, Rettl shows a large canvas inspired by the motif of the ‘ring’ in art history and literature. The work takes its formal point of departure from Arthur Schnitzler’s early 20th Century play Reigen and Peter Paul Rubens’ 1635 painting The Dance of the Villagers.
Text by Francesca Astesani