Press release: Opening 05/27/2017
ARNO RINK – NEO RAUCH
The Grafikstiftung Neo Rauch opens its exhibition on May 27th 2017.
ARNO RINK – NEO RAUCH
Press conference: 2 p.m.
Opening: 4 p.m.
At the sixth exhibition, the Grafikstiftung Neo Rauch presents a double show of works by Arno Rink and Neo Rauch – showing two generations of painting artists in Leipzig. Arno Rink was a professor and rector at the Academy of Fine Arts in Leipzig (1972 – 2005). He paved the way for a whole generation of painters and until now his name is deeply connected with the strict and traditionally-minded education at the Academy of Fine Arts, that is why many young students moved to Leipzig or stayed there after their training. Being a scholar of Bernhard Heisig and Werner Tübke, Rink shaped the unmistakable, quaint style of the Leipzig School in the 1980s and 90s. During his 50 years of figural-representational painting, Rink developed a unique picture-language working with mythological allegories as well as examples of art history or modernity. He combines still life objects with human images to depict metaphors. His depiction of portraits, nudes and studio scenes are not only a statement of the obvious, rather an expression of a surrealistic manner indicating the ambiguous and the mysterious strangeness. On this aspect, the viewer may perceive similarities in comparison to Neo Rauch’s oeuvre, who studied at Rink’s from 1981 until 1986.
For the double show, Neo Rauch has created two new large-sized works on paper as well as four lithographs, which are accompanied by a quantity of drawings in a smaller format. Both artists have in common that the scenes depicted unify a ubiquitousness of different historical timescales. Architectural formations, which may be mainly found in the recent years, meet surreal creations and chimera as in a world of difference. There is barely any work, which does not show a human figure, not only demonstrating the mere physique of human kind, rather presenting protagonists and staffage in an environment based on an own picture language, perceived by the viewer individually.