Sunday, January 3, 2016

BEAUTY: Painting--Neo Rauch

Neo Rauch has an interesting life to back up his fascinating art works. Born in Leipzig, East Germany, his parents died in a train accident when he was four weeks old. He learned to paint at the Leipzig Academy of Visual Arts before the reunification of Germany but claims the event has no bearing on his work. His hallucinatory, dream-like canvases in which landscapes, buildings, people, and soldiers rise and fall and blend together with the ease of vapor are certainly surreal but he does not align himself with Surrealism. Art historian Charlotte Mullins elaborates: "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."

I love how all these fragments of meaning collide, how layers and levels of reality and improbability float, jostle, and coexist...just like in a dream. The primordial mind is visual and we tell stories to ourselves in pictures. It is powerful.


Top to bottom: Alte Verbindungen; Der Nächste Zug; Die Fugue; Die Stickerin; Krypta; Krönung; Leporello; Neue Rollen

Neo Rauch is represented by David Zwirner Gallery.
http://www.davidzwirner.com/artists/neo-rauch/

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