Neo Rauch - with his paintings and drawings the Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin continues its series of exhibitions of works from the Deutsche Bank Collection. The most recent artists to be represented in this series with individual exhibitions of their works have been Katharina Sieverding, Georg Baselitz and Guenther Foerg. The exhibition of Neo Rauch's pictures, which has been prepared in close co-operation with the artist, also includes the latest creations from the artist's studio.
Almost a decade has passed since the Deutsche Bank's art team encountered Neo Rauch and his work for the first time. Although his early works are certainly impressive, his present oeuvre is more figurative and on a grander scale, his use of forms unique. Today Rauch is considered one of the most important artists working in Germany.
The artist, who celebrated his 41st birthday as preparations were being made for this exhibition, completed his master's degree under Bernhard Heisig in 1990. He continues to live in Leipzig, the city of his birth, where he works in a former spinning mill. Here he created the seven new monumental paintings for the exhibition in the Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin.
Rauch began this new series with Das geht alles von ihrer Zeit ab, followed by Stereo and Falle which, like the subsequent paintings, weave personal experience, inner images and exterior reality into a complex visual language. Perhaps inspired by a certain woman exhibition visitor, his pictures are surprisingly full of female figures. Strong and independent, they direct the mysterious choreography of his works.
The artist finds most of the inspiration for his pictures in his immediate surroundings: in the people and the flat landscapes around Leipzig. Factory buildings and industrial scenes also find their way into his work, as for instance the transformer station in Einfall. Rauch shifts perspectives and plays with the reality of space. Simultaneous actions, parallel montages and associative dream sequences are the instruments of his art - discovering and inventing its incentive.
Neo Rauch's pictures lead the observer into an irritating world of productivity whose purpose has been forgotten. His figures, composed of comic strip motifs and advertising images, act out an invisible plan, unfolding a multi-layered drama of inner images. Although at first sight everything appears familiar and unambiguous, Rauch succeeds in astonishing us and - despite the flood of media images that inundates us daily - in creating something that has never been perceived before.
The exhibition was created by Dr. Ariane Grigoteit, curator of the Deutsche Bank Collection. It is accompanied by a catalogue which presents a selection of works by Neo Rauch from the Deutsche Bank Collection and includes texts by Lynne Cooke, Dr. Ariane Grigoteit, Dr. Harald Kunde and Thomas Wagner. The soft cover catalogue is on sale for 10 DM. An English supplement is available on request.
For the Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin's Edition No. 15, Neo Rauch has created a very special kind of illuminated object. In co-operation with the Lichttechnisches Werk in Leipzig, he has fashioned a lamp in the form of a sheepdog offering orientation: Hirt, half human, half canine, is a figure that recurs a number of times in Rauch's latest series of works. The artist was attracted by the idea of realising this figure in another medium, and the lamp is now available in a limited edition of one hundred copies, exclusively from the MuseumsShop of the Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin, for 650 DM.
The accompanying program of events will be inaugurated by a conversation between Neo Rauch and Dr. Eduard Beaucamp of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on Thursday, May 10, 2001, at 6:30 p.m. in the atrium of the Deutsche Bank. This exchange of ideas between artist and critic will be moderated by Dr. Ariane Grigoteit.
The now traditional Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin family brunch - for adults and children - will take place on Sunday, May 13, 2001 at 11:30 a.m.
A lecture by Professor Dr. Klaus Werner, rector of the Leipzig College of Graphic Design and Book Art, entitled 'Ich bin ein Leipziger' – Neo Rauch und sein Abschied von der Leipziger Schule ('I come from Leipzig' - Neo Rauch's farewell to the Leipzig School), to be delivered on June 14, 2001 at 7 p.m, will mark the conclusion of the exhibition.
As with all exhibitions of works from the Deutsche Bank Collection, entrance to Neo Rauch - Deutsche Bank Collection is free during the first two weeks of the exhibition.
IMAGE:
Neo Rauch
Stereo, 2001
Oil on Paper
197.5 x 200 cm
Foto: Uwe Walter
Courtesy Galerie EIGEN+ART
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