Neo Rauch

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'Paranoia', oil on canvas painting by Neo Rauch, 2007

Neo Rauch (born 18 April 1960, in Leipzig, East Germany) is a German artist whose monumental paintings mine the intersection of his personal history with the politics of industrial alienation. His work reflects the influence of socialist realism, and owes a debt to Surrealists Giorgio de Chirico and René Magritte, although Rauch hesitates to align himself with surrealism. He studied at the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst in Leipzig, and he lives in Leipzig (Leipziger Baumwollspinnerei), Germany and works as the principal artist of the New Leipzig School. ^[1]

Rauch's paintings suggest a narrative intent but, as art historian Charlotte Mullins explains, closer scrutiny immediately presents the viewer with enigmas: "Architectural elements peter out; men in uniform from throughout history intimidate men and women from other centuries; great struggles occur but their reason is never apparent; styles change at a whim."^[2]

1 Life
2 Works
- 2.1 Para
3 Notes
4 Sources
5 External links

[edit] Life

Rauch's parents died in a train accident when he was four weeks old. He grew up with his grandparents in Aschersleben and passed his exam at the Thomas-Müntzer-Oberschule (now Gymnasium Stephaneum). Rauch studied painting at the Leipziger Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst (Higher Education for Graphic and Book Art). He then was Masterstudent with Professor Arno Rink (1981–1986) and with Professor Bernhard Heisig (1986-1990). After the fall of the GDR Rauch worked from 1993 to 1998 as an assistant to Arno Rink and Sieghard Gille at the Leipziger Akademie.

In August 2005, he became Professor at the Leipziger Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst. Together with Timm Rautert he was curator for the exhibit "Man muss sich beeilen, wenn man noch etwas sehen will..." ("One has to hurry, if one still wants to see something...") at Gut Selikum in Neuss.

Rauch works with his spouse and artist Rosa Loy at a former cotton-mill about which he says: "It is the location of concentration and inspiration. Here the best ideas come to me."

[edit] Works

In painting "Characteristic, suggestion and eternity" are important marks of quality.^[3]

Rauch is considered to be part of the New Leipzig School and his works are characterized by a style that depends on the Social Realism of communism. Especially American critics prefer to recognize in his contemporary style a post communist Surrealism. But more than anyone Rauch is recognized as an East-West painter. Rauch merges the modern myths of both the Warsaw Pact and the Western world. His figures are portrayed in a landscape in which an American Comic-Aestheticism meets the Social Realism of communism. In the art publication „Texte zur Kunst“ (Texts about Art, number 55) he was defined as an example for a new German neo-conservatism.

One of his promoters, Roberta Smith (journalist for the New York Times), caused great enthusiasm in the US for Rauch's works with an article about the "painter, who came from the cold." Rauch's works are in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and have been shown in numerous solo exhibitions, including one at the Wiener Albertina.

Rauch won the Vincent Award in 2002. His work was featured at the 2005 Carnegie International in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, and he had his first solo North American museum exhibition at the Saint Louis Art Museum in St. Louis, Missouri in 2003-2004.^[4] His first Canadian exhibit was held at the Musee d'art contemporain de Montreal in 2006.^[5]

In 2007 Rauch painted a series of works especially for a solo exhibition in the mezzanine of the modern art wing at the Metropolitan Museum in New York City. This special exhibition was called "Para." Rauch explains that he enjoys the associations the word "para" evokes in his own mind, and says that his works at "Para" have no particular intention, but that they could signify anything to anyone.

“

When I first agreed to do the Met exhibition, I thought about a way of working that would be about the nature of a museum. But straight away I realized that I was much more interested in those "visions from the Witches Circle" in my studio than I was in coming up with things in a purely thematic way. Calling them "visions" reflects my personality—they precede inspiration and spring from the moment when internal images appear at the prompting of intellectual decisions. I have no choice but to accept everything that I discover in this way.^[1]

”

[edit] Para

Works for "Para":

Jagdzimmer (Hunter's room), 2007
Vater (Father), 2007
Die Fuge (The Fugue/The Gap), 2007
Warten auf die Barbaren (Waiting for the Barbarians), 2007
Para, 2007
Paranoia, 2007
Goldgrube (Gold Mine), 2007
Vorort (Suburb), 2007
Der nächste Zug (The Next Move/The Next Draw), 2007
Die Flamme (The Flame), 2007

The works created for "Para" are characterized by three elements: a pre-communist civic-mindedness, communist Social Realism and an idealized countryside. On the other hand it's a prefix which evokes associations like para-normal, para-dox or para-noia'.
It may be read in a system connection, for example a picture like paranoia
reflects the cognitions theorie in a hermetic room.^[^{citation needed]}

Leipzig, Rauch's city of birth, is known historically as a city of trade through its association with the Leipzig Trade Fair. This civic-mindedness of a trader's city also expressed itself under communism where Leipzig was the center of popular resistance that led to Die Wende. Rauch uses characters and images of life of pre-communist civil society that was oppressed by communism in the GDR. The oppression of communism and the total control of civic life under the rule of communist ideology is one of the elements of Rauch's work. The destructive powers of ideologies is perhaps the reason why Rauch refuses to interpret his own work as a powerful statement in favor of a cultural relativism that characterized the civic bourgeois thought that was destroyed.

In 2007, the Galerie Rudolfinum in Prague held a retrospective entitled "Neue Rollen," organized by the Kunstmuseum, Wolfsburg, of Rauch's works covering 13 years. ^[1]