(Basel 1934–2013 Vienna)
Untitled, 1960, signed three times Schilling (on the cover plate three variations for installation), sand, slate, plaster, paint on burlap, 160 x 169 or 169 x 160 cm, framed

Full-page colour illustration:
Alfons Schilling, die frühen Bilder, Schlebrügge, Editor, Vienna 2008, p. 15

Provenance:
Alfons Schilling Estate
Private Collection, Vienna

The possibility of the unlimited image that never stops can only be depicted by an extract. How am I supposed to sense the “eternal” in an image if I am denied the opportunity to view the image as a complete entity? The viewer must be given every place to stop (even if it is just the edge). Only the unstoppable is true painting. The painting must not give rise to a beginning or an end. These two points must be located outside the painting, especially as they measure out a certain timespan in themselves. (…) My image must be able to be accessed from all sides and left towards all sides.
Perspective was created to produce a point at which to stop, to limit the space. Our new stop is time, which possibly takes on the same fictitious function as perspective did back then. That would be clear to me. It’s less clear to me whether I need this “new stop” at all, as it seems that I can also work without stops. Can time not also be overcome by eternally fast movement? Movement in its own right. (…) So far, space has just been a feeling – we are not quite there yet.
Alfons Schilling, from: Notebooks, 1 March 1961- from the mentioned catalogue.