Zeichenbild (Scriptural), 1982

Mixed media on wood, 164 × 104.5 × 4 cm 

Part of a large series of paintings begun in the early 1980s, and in some cases completed in the early 1990s, these paintings explore themes intrinsically linked to the motif of the cross (as an intersection between life and death but also as an interruption of a line of continuity), the barrier or border (thus questioning the division imposed by the wall), and dissolve into abstract details of scratches and graffiti that seem to mimic spontaneous gestures on that very same surface of the separating wall.

(…) Shifts between painterly registers unsettle the possibilities of depiction. The dense color field of Zeichenbild (Scriptural) (1982), punctuated by light sandy colors on the right to the deeper trunk-like form arcing up the central axis, figures itself as a ground and a void. On the left, a visage with mouth agape, tilted slightly upwards, is rendered with the tell-tale matrix of a halftone, as Rehfeldt had painted this composition over a large format poster. Edges of this face dissolve, leaving it almost swallowed by the surrounding field of grey-cedar brown. This time, when inscription coheres into writing, it signals refusal. Just beneath this countenance, “NO” is clearly visible, etched into the surface. That array of marks recall, too, scrawled lines of graffiti. Illicit marks attracted the attention of the Stasi, which was tasked with policing the terms and sites of communication. With this maneuver, Rehfeldt creates a collision between the signs of public space and private studio, threading them through one another while refraining from clearly stating the object of that negation. (Inter Alios, Inter Alia: Robert Rehfeldt Between Mail Art and Painting – Christopher Williams-Wynn).