Neo Rauch, born in Leipzig in 1960 and raised in Aschersleben. After graduating from high school in Aschersleben he studied at the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst in Leipzig where he graduated as a Master scholar (Meisterschüler) in 1990. From 2009 to 2014 he was a Honorary Professor at the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst where he held a professorship from 2005 – 2009.
As one of the most renown contemporary artists, Neo Rauch has created a broad body of works not only comprised by paintings and drawings, but also by an extensive oeuvre of graphic works in the past decades. Since 1993, where the officially recognised oeuvre starts, until now, great amount of graphic works have been made.
Since 1993, his work has been the subject of numerous exhibitions: On occasion of the Art Award of the Leipziger Volkszeitung, the Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig presented him with a solo exhibition in 1997, followed by the exhibition “Randgebiet” that was shown at the Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst Leipzig, at the Haus der Kunst München and at the Kunsthalle Zürich in 2000. A complex body of works on paper was first shown as a separate convolute in 2004 at the Albertina in Vienna. Numerous solo exhibitions were to follow, e.g. at the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg (2006), the Metropolitan Museum of Art (2007) and recently at the Museum Frieder Burda in Baden-Baden (2011). In 2010, Neo Rauch had his first major museum retrospective at the Museum der Bildenden Künste Leipzig and the Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich, which showed around 120 works of the artist in two parallel running exhibitions. Venues that have presented Neo Rauch in group exhibitions include the Venice Biennial (2001), Centre Georges Pompidou Paris (2002), National Art Museum of China (2008), Albertinum Dresden (2010), Museo de Arte Sao Paulo (2010), Moscow Biennial (2011) and the Hamburger Kunsthalle (2012).
Neo Rauch is represented by Galerie EIGEN + ART Leipzig/Berlin and David Zwirner, New York. Contact: berlin@eigen-art.com.
Photo: Ludwig Rauch, Portrait Neo, Leipzig (Germany), 2014