Rita Ackermann
No Time to Think
No Time to Think
Price available upon request
2022
Acrylic, oil and china marker on canvas
193 x 170.2 cm / 76 x 67 in
196.2 x 173.4 x 6.4 cm / 77 ¼ x 68 ¼ x 2 ½ in (framed)
![](https://artbaselhongkong2023.vip-hauserwirth.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/ACKER119915-scale-1.jpg)
‘Warlords of sorrow and queens of tomorrow
Will offer their heads for a prayer.
You can't find no salvation, you have no expectations
Anytime, anyplace, anywhere.
Mercury, gravity, nobility, humility.
You know you can't keep her and the water gets deeper
That is leading you onto the brink
But there's no time to think.’
—Bob Dylan, No Time to Think, 1978
Will offer their heads for a prayer.
You can't find no salvation, you have no expectations
Anytime, anyplace, anywhere.
Mercury, gravity, nobility, humility.
You know you can't keep her and the water gets deeper
That is leading you onto the brink
But there's no time to think.’
—Bob Dylan, No Time to Think, 1978
Ackermann’s paintings communicate a kind of dynamism that derives in part from the sense of urgency that goes into making them. Working on a particular picture often involves entering into the uncertain arena of various rescue operations: unforeseeable problems or intended accidents emerge that the artist must then work around or assimilate. As they move toward their final composition, Ackermann’s paintings reflect the perpetual motion of these various survival missions. As a result, her layered surfaces are haloed with the aura of many residual, activating gestures.
![](https://artbaselhongkong2023.vip-hauserwirth.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/ACKER119915.jpg)
![](https://artbaselhongkong2023.vip-hauserwirth.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/ACKER119915-4.jpg)
In ‘No Time to Think’ (2022), underlying figures are overlaid with sketches of guns, tanks and vivid detonations of pink and green; thickly applied washes of paint are scraped away at, giving rise to revelatory compositions. The measured intensity by which pigments are worked over communicates the purposeful energy of a distinctly spatial calligraphy. [1]
![](https://artbaselhongkong2023.vip-hauserwirth.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Rita-Ackermann.jpg)
About the artist
![](https://artbaselhongkong2023.vip-hauserwirth.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Rita-Ackermann.jpg)
Portrait of Rita Ackermann © Rita Ackermann
All artwork images © Rita Ackermann. Photo: Thomas Barratt
1.) Text adapted from Jeffrey Grunthaner