Rainer Ganahl (1961) - The Apprentice in the Sun

Main features of the work
Rainer Ganahl (1961) • “The Apprentice in the Sun” • Ink on paper • 42×30 cm, with frame 54×42 cm • Title lower right • Certificate of authenticity from Galleria Astuni • Certificate of authenticity Meeting Art • Provenance Italian private collection.
An artwork belonging to the Conceptual Art movement.

This work by Rainer Ganahl engages in a direct and surprising dialogue with Marcel Duchamp and with his famous 1914 drawing “The Apprentice in the Sun”: the same subject reduced to a mental sign, the same integration of image and title on the page, and the identical graphical layout that turns the drawing into a tool of thought. Just as Duchamp helped lay the foundations of a decisive core of Twentieth-Century conceptual art, Ganahl today revisits that lesson with a swift, controlled stroke, creating an essential, surprising image of strong impact.

In Duchamp's 1914 drawing, the figure is reduced to a schema of movement and learning, shifting the focus from representation to thought; Ganahl today applies the same principle, condensing form into a few incisive marks and building an image that functions as an immediate mental trigger, where gesture, title, and ink work together with precision and intensity.

Dated 2012, the year in which Ganahl took part in the exhibition project “I would like to walk on the moon. Reflections on the concept of space” at the Enrico Astuni Gallery in Bologna, the work presented here sits at the heart of the relationship between artist and gallery, further confirmed by the authenticity certificate issued by the same Astuni.

It is a real little jewel of contemporary conceptual art, extremely rare to find on the Italian and international art market: iconic, rigorous and surprising, it represents an ideal choice for both the seasoned collector and for those who wish to begin—or complete in a grand manner—their collection with a work of strong visual intelligence, in a market segment today particularly accessible.
The work is defined by its idea and its title with such force that it needs nothing else to assert its identity: in Ganahl as in Duchamp, even the signature becomes superfluous, because everything is entrusted to the clarity of the image, to the graphic structure of the page, and to the handwritten title.

Accompanied by a double certificate of authenticity issued by Galleria Astuni and Meeting Art, the artwork has solid provenance and full reliability as a collectible.

The buyer will receive the artwork in carefully packed and sturdy packaging. Very fast shipping. Free pickup available in Monza/Milan.