 Einfall, 2001 Oil on canvas, 82 11/16 x 118 1/8 inches Marc and Livia Straus Family Collection © 2003 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Neo Rauch Currents 90 Neo Rauch, who lives and works in Leipzig, Germany, has emerged as one of Europe's leading painters. His large-scale figurative paintings mine art and cultural history for subject matter, creating narratives that defy literal interpretation. While Rauch acknowledges that using familiar imagery and symbols is inescapable in figurative work, he minimizes overt references by passing these visual elements through the transformative filter of his imagination. Rauch's canvases are populated with visions of labor, workers manipulating amorphous tools and strange hybrids of animals and machines. Some of Rauch's paintings have an absurdist quality, such as "Hausmeister", 2002, in which a child and a caretaker look on while a school mistress points sternly toward a geological map. Old-fashioned notions of the future pervade other works, such as "Einfall" (Invasion), 2001, which references comic books and science fiction films from the 1950s and 1960s. Rauch's jarring palette, with colors ranging from chalky yellows to astringent reds to deep black, heightens the eerie quality of these works. Neo Rauch represented Germany in the 2001 Venice Biennale and won the Vincent van Gogh Biannual Award for Contemporary Art in Europe in 2002. A major exhibition of Rauch's paintings will open at the Albertina Museum in Vienna in 2004. "Currents 90: Neo Rauch" is the artist's first solo exhibition in an American museum. "Currents 90: Neo Rauch" was organized by Robin Clark, associate curator of contemporary art. Exhibition: December 12, 2003 - February 15, 2004 Opening hours: Tue-Sun 10am - 5pm, open until 9pm on Fridays, closed Mondays The Saint Louis Art Museum (Gallery 337) 1 Fine Arts Drive USA-St. Louis 63110-1380, Missouri Telephone +1 314 721-0072 Fax +1 314 721-6172 E-Mail: exhadmin@slam.org www.slam.org |
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