Neo Rauch

Neo Rauch
Lösung, 2005
Oil on canvas
Private collection
Courtesy David Zwirner, New York, and Eigen+Art, Berlin / Leipzig

After showcasing the work of Anselm Kiefer, an icon of German art of the 1980s, the Musée is following up with an exhibition devoted to an emblematic figure in the new German painting. From September 14, 2006 to January 7, 2007, the Musée d’art contemporain presents Neo Rauch, the artist’s first Canadian show, featuring a group of eight paintings produced between 2002 and 2005.

Sought after by collectors and museums the world over, Neo Rauch is the most prominent and influential graduate of Leipzig’s Academy of Visual Arts, which is famous for being a mecca for Socialist Realism prior to German reunification. Traces of this style of painting are still apparent in Rauch’s figurative work, in which unusual or dreamlike images vie with undercurrents of reflection, introspection and reverie. The strangeness of his art arises from the unexpected combination of iconographic and visual elements from different worlds: comic strips, advertising and film; architecture and design; and German culture, art history and history in general. “The instant we lay eyes on a painting by Neo Rauch, we can scarcely remain indifferent,” says the curator, Réal Lussier. “The nature of the subject matter, the treatment of space, ruptures of scale and incongruity of certain motifs conspire to rivet our attention and destabilize us.”

In Lösung (Solution), 2005, for example, the canvas offers more puzzles than it solves. It amalgamates various major painting styles: genre pictures, history painting, landscape and portrait. Four pairs of characters are shown in ambiguous scenes. Viewed through the window of a house, a man and woman are engaged in a struggle… or an embrace. Outside, a soldier in a Napoleonic uniform is holding a gun on a prisoner wearing shorts and a T-shirt, while a young man, dressed like the prisoner, is walking with his hands clasped behind his back (or are they tied?). Next to him, a patriarchal figure (a modern-day Laocoön) is holding a phylactery in the form of an enormous earthworm, on which are written the letters Lösung (Solution), the painting’s title. Are these simply different sequences in the same story? It is all a confusion, of time, space and references—just like a Kafka novel or a dream.

As Réal Lussier once again puts it so well: “And if Kafka reflects the state of mind of early twentieth-century society, we may consider Rauch’s paintings symptomatic of the prevailing mood in the early twentieth-first century.”

Catalogue

A 52-page catalogue accompanies the exhibition. It contains essays by the curator, Réal Lussier, and by art historian Patrice Loubier, a biobibliography and reproductions of the works. It may be purchased for $19.95 at the museum’s Olivieri Bookstore or from your local bookseller.

Musée d'art contemporain lecture series: Robert Fleck

"Neo Rauch and the new Leipzig School of Painting"
Wednesday, October 4, 2006, at 6 p.m. -CANCELLED-

What the critics are saying

"One of Germany's most famous contemporary painters." (Matthew Woodley, Montréal Mirror, September 14, 2006)

"And lucky we are. Rauch's paintings have the potency of grade A crack cocaine. See them once and you'll likely leave a little irked. The competing symbolism in any given painting is an instant irritant, challenging the viewer's knee-jerk assumption that something must be "gotten" here, a narrative understood, a code cracked. You'll be compelled to give them a second look, though, and when you do, you'll realize the seduction was aesthetic. Rauch is a technician of rare skill; his textures, his figures and his perspective are flawlessly mastered." (Isa Tousignant, Hour, September 21, 2006)

"An artist much appreciated by European collectors." (Catherine Saguès, Living With Style, September 2006)

"L'exposition Neo Rauch donne l'occasion de se familiariser avec un artiste important, considéré comme la figure de proue de ce mouvement. Pour les amateurs d'arts visuels, cette première manifestation au Canada est sans contredit l'événement de l'automne." (Michel Hellman, Le Devoir, 6 octobre 2006)

"Le travail de Neo Rauch peut causer malaise et/ou addiction. Ce maître de l'ambiguïté revisite l'histoire allemande d'après guerre en peignant des scènes narratives renvoyant à l'imaginaire ou au rêve, empreintes de violence, de culpabilité et de matières organiques. Dérangeant, mais jouissif pour le spectateur rompu au jeu de l'interactivité." (Mario Cloutier, La Presse, 20 septembre 2006)

"The Leipzig painter's combination of socialist realism and arcane symbolism is peerless." (Bryne McLaughlin, Canadian Art, fall 2006)