Neo Rauch: The Signpost

David Zwirner is pleased to present an exhibition of new paintings by Neo Rauch (b. 1960) at the gallery’s 533 West 19th Street location. The presentation follows the artist’s 2019 exhibition at David Zwirner Hong Kong, Neo Rauch: Propaganda, and will mark his ninth solo show with the gallery since joining in 2000.

Rauch’s last solo exhibition in New York was Neo Rauch: Aus dem Boden/From the Floor, which was presented at The Drawing Center in 2019, after first being shown at the Des Moines Art Center, Iowa. Also in 2019, Rauch was the subject of a solo exhibition focusing on his work from 2008 to 2019 at Palazzo Pitti, Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence. From March to September 2021, Neo Rauch: Der Beifang is on view at Gutshaus Steglitz, Berlin.

Image: Neo Rauch, Die Pumpe, 2021. Photo: Uwe Walter. © Neo Rauch / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn. Courtesy the artist, Galerie EIGEN + ART Leipzig/Berlin and David Zwirner

Location

533 West 19th Street New York

Dates

November 4—December 17, 2021

Artist

The Signpost

In these new works, Neo Rauch explores figuration and the ambiguous nature of meaning in visual art while responding to his own experiences of the present day. Several of the works feature prominently positioned signposts with arrows pointing in myriad directions, alluding to the disorientation of contemporary life.

Neo Rauch

Wegweiser, 2021

Oil on canvas

118 1/8 x 98 3/8 inches (300 x 250 cm)
Framed: 120 1/8 x 100 3/8 inches (305 x 255 cm)

Rauch in his studio, Leipzig, 2021. Photo by Uwe Walter

Rauch in his studio, Leipzig, 2021. Photo by Uwe Walter

“Rauch is known for … huge, dense, ostensibly narrative scenes in which narrative is stubbornly elusive. Events seem to take place in a parallel world. Portions of a canvas can be futuristic, with space-age infrastructure, while elsewhere there may be a sky out of Tiepolo and people who have come from the Napoleonic Wars or some primordial Europe. Rauch’s figures are bound together in tight compositions that recall Renaissance art one minute and socialist realism the next, and yet they remain sealed off from one another, unaware of anything around them, and their actions have a suspended quality.”

—Thomas Meaney, The New Yorker

Neo Rauch

Der Zwiespalt, 2021

Oil on canvas

118 3/8 x 197 1/8 inches (300 x 500 cm)
Framed: 120 1/4 x 198 3/4 inches (305 x 504 cm)

This large diptych Der Zwiespalt—meaning “the discord” or “the dichotomy” in German—can be read as an allegory of the creative process as well as an exploration of the tension between the private and the public realm.

Neo Rauch, Der Zwiespalt, 2021 (detail)

Neo Rauch, Der Zwiespalt, 2021 (detail)

Neo Rauch, Der Zwiespalt, 2021 (detail)

Neo Rauch, Der Zwiespalt, 2021 (detail)

Neo Rauch, Der Zwiespalt, 2021 (detail)

Neo Rauch, Der Zwiespalt, 2021 (detail)

Installation view, Neo Rauch: Aus dem Boden/From the Floor, The Drawing Center, New York, 2019

Installation view, Neo Rauch: Aus dem Boden/From the Floor, The Drawing Center, New York, 2019

The Signpost is Rauch’s first solo exhibition at David Zwirner in New York since 2014. In 2019, the artist was the subject of a substantial solo exhibition at The Drawing Center, New York.

Neo Rauch

Das Wanken, 2021

Oil on canvas

15 3/4 x 15 3/4 inches (40 x 40 cm)
Framed: 17 3/4 x 17 3/4 inches (45 x 45 cm)

Neo Rauch

Die Pumpe, 2021

Oil on canvas

98 3/8 x 118 1/8 inches (250 x 300 cm)
Framed: 100 3/8 x 120 1/8 inches (255 x 305 cm)

“As fantastical as Rauch’s depictions might seem, like dreams (or perhaps nightmares) they retain elements that link them to actual experience.”

—Laura Hoptman, executive director of The Drawing Center

Neo Rauch, Die Pumpe, 2021 (detail)

Neo Rauch, Die Pumpe, 2021 (detail)

Neo Rauch, Die Pumpe, 2021 (detail)

Neo Rauch, Die Pumpe, 2021 (detail)

Neo Rauch

Die Gründung, 2021

Oil on canvas

118 1/8 x 98 3/8 inches (300 x 250 cm)
Framed: 120 1/8 x 100 3/8 inches (305 x 255 cm)

Rauch working on Die Gründung, 2021. Photo by Uwe Walter

Rauch working on Die Gründung, 2021. Photo by Uwe Walter

“My process is far less a reflection than it is drawing from the sediments of my past, which occurs in an almost trance-like state.”

—Neo Rauch

Neo Rauch

Der Riß, 2021

Oil on canvas

98 3/8 x 118 1/8 inches (250 x 300 cm)
Framed: 100 3/8 x 120 1/8 inches (255 x 305 cm)

“He stages … a play with historical set pieces, accessories, and masquerades that reveals the deeper-seated sediments of the narrow ridge called ‘the present’ on which we all find ourselves.”

—Harald Kunde, museum director

Neo Rauch

Der Anstoß, 2021

Oil on canvas

98 3/8 x 78 3/4 inches (250 x 200 cm)
Framed: 100 3/8 x 80 3/4 inches (255 x 205 cm)

“Neo’s work is a large archive of monumental momentums, in which time has become paint itself.”

—Luc Tuymans

Neo Rauch, Der Anstoß, 2021 (detail)

Neo Rauch, Der Anstoß, 2021 (detail)

Neo Rauch, Der Anstoß, 2021 (detail)

Neo Rauch, Der Anstoß, 2021 (detail)

Neo Rauch

Der Orden, 2021

Oil on canvas

98 3/8 x 78 3/4 inches (250 x 200 cm)
Framed: 100 3/8 x 80 3/4 inches (255 x 205 cm)

“Neo Rauch’s paintings, which are sometimes almost as large as a Rubens altarpiece, are also heavily populated sites of great commotion and complexity. His works are often crowded with activity—built structures coming into being; human forms in flight or fight; areas of strangely amorphous shapes, semi-abstract, as if self-generating. And all this is tightly orchestrated. But not beforehand. Never beforehand.”

—Michael Glover, author and art critic

Neo Rauch

Die Klasse, 2021

Oil on linen

15 3/4 x 23 3/4 inches (40 x 60.3 cm)
Framed: 17 x 24 7/8 inches (43.2 x 63.2 cm)

“A painting is a living organism which grabs what it needs. From a certain moment of working on a painting, it will take over and paint itself through me.”

—Neo Rauch

Neo Rauch

Unterm Dach, 2021

Oil on canvas

98 3/8 x 118 1/8 inches (250 x 300 cm)
Framed: 100 3/8 x 120 1/8 inches (255 x 305 cm)

Neo Rauch

Der Auftrag, 2021

Oil on canvas

15 3/4 x 23 3/4 inches (40 x 60.3 cm)
Framed: 17 x 24 7/8 inches (43.2 x 63.2 cm)

“Hope shimmers in Neo Rauch’s theater of the world with all of its antichronological intricacy. His recognizable, irresolvable complexity constitutes a window into immortality; it is like a biomorphic handrail that guides us to what awaits us at the end of our journey into the future.”

—Ralph Keuning, museum director

Rauch in his studio, Leipzig, 2021. Photo by Uwe Walter

Rauch in his studio, Leipzig, 2021. Photo by Uwe Walter

Inquire about works by Neo Rauch

Neo Rauch

Die Klasse, 2021

Oil on linen

15 3/4 x 23 3/4 inches (40 x 60.3 cm)
Framed: 17 x 24 7/8 inches (43.2 x 63.2 cm)

Neo Rauch

Der Auftrag, 2021

Oil on canvas

15 3/4 x 23 3/4 inches (40 x 60.3 cm)
Framed: 17 x 24 7/8 inches (43.2 x 63.2 cm)

Neo Rauch

Der Anstoß, 2021

Oil on canvas

98 3/8 x 78 3/4 inches (250 x 200 cm)
Framed: 100 3/8 x 80 3/4 inches (255 x 205 cm)

Neo Rauch

Die Pumpe, 2021

Oil on canvas

98 3/8 x 118 1/8 inches (250 x 300 cm)
Framed: 100 3/8 x 120 1/8 inches (255 x 305 cm)

Neo Rauch

Das Wanken, 2021

Oil on canvas

15 3/4 x 15 3/4 inches (40 x 40 cm)
Framed: 17 3/4 x 17 3/4 inches (45 x 45 cm)

Neo Rauch

Unterm Dach, 2021

Oil on canvas

98 3/8 x 118 1/8 inches (250 x 300 cm)
Framed: 100 3/8 x 120 1/8 inches (255 x 305 cm)

Neo Rauch

Wegweiser, 2021

Oil on canvas

118 1/8 x 98 3/8 inches (300 x 250 cm)
Framed: 120 1/8 x 100 3/8 inches (305 x 255 cm)

Neo Rauch

Der Orden, 2021

Oil on canvas

98 3/8 x 78 3/4 inches (250 x 200 cm)
Framed: 100 3/8 x 80 3/4 inches (255 x 205 cm)

Neo Rauch

Der Zwiespalt, 2021

Oil on canvas

118 3/8 x 197 1/8 inches (300 x 500 cm)
Framed: 120 1/4 x 198 3/4 inches (305 x 504 cm)

Neo Rauch

Der Riß, 2021

Oil on canvas

98 3/8 x 118 1/8 inches (250 x 300 cm)
Framed: 100 3/8 x 120 1/8 inches (255 x 305 cm)

Neo Rauch

Die Gründung, 2021

Oil on canvas

118 1/8 x 98 3/8 inches (300 x 250 cm)
Framed: 120 1/8 x 100 3/8 inches (305 x 255 cm)

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