Neo Rauch "Lamm", 2006

As the most important representative of the so-called "New Leipzig School", Neo Rauch stands for a figurative painting that combines elements of history painting and surrealism. His bizarre, surprising and enigmatic pictorial inventions, which he composes in his typical realistic style reminiscent of poster art in colour and flow, have made him one of the most successful and most discussed contemporary painters.
As typical for Neo Rauch, in "Lamm" ("Lamb") the iconography of his composition consists of several figures. In a strangely surreal environment that cannot be located in space and time, they have obviously come together for a significant meeting that largely defies interpretation. Gathered around a sparsely set table against a dramatic backdrop of clouds and mountains, the three men seem to be discussing over a slim book held by the standing person. The nature of their relationship remains unclear. Bizarre, partially dissolving stone and architectural formations surround them and reinforce the impression of a dream face. According to his own statement, images of the unconscious and dreamed associations play an important role in Neo Rauch’s paintings. The lamb, which gives the work its title, does not appear in the picture, but only as a small lettering in one of the enigmatic cartouches in the foreground.
The realistic painting style, which is typical of Rauch, evokes history painting or romantic painting from the 19th century. For the artist, the formal aspect of representation, the painterly itself, is the essential component of his work, as he put it in an interview:
"The how is the decisive question in painting anyway. The how triumphs over the what, otherwise the painting is useless, otherwise it is pure ‘journaille’. It is simply that the senses graze every square inch of the canvas and thereby nourish the psychic organism, the soul. That's all you can expect from art, if it's there. And if the nutrients one takes this way also carry information, so much the better. But it has to be in this order. "
However, what is depicted, the enigmatic scene, challenges the viewer to infer a context of meaning and to reflect on the story Rauch's painting seems to tell. This allows the artist to explore dreams and free flights of thought, the hermetic of the world and the imagined metaphysical space behind it, or at least to make it perceptible.
As Neo Rauch sums up in two sentences:
"The canvas is basically a kind of parabolic antenna conducive to receiving transmissions from metaphysical space. [...] And if my paintings can contribute in that respect to the project of re-enchanting the world, then I will gladly call myself a romantic.
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Courtesy of Galerie EIGEN + ART Leipzig/Berlin ©VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2023