Neo Rauch

Omigod it’s the eighties! VH1 explores those traditions with a retrospective TV show revisiting hair bands, Ronald Reagan, shoulder pads and the Berlin Wall. It’s the legacy behind that wall that brings us Neo Rauch, erstwhile painter from Leipzig. The mythology of repression and the discipline of social realism combine to create an exciting artist. I had a blast at this show. It’s great to see a little skill, a little wit and a great sense of color all at work. As a painter who admires the European legacy, I delighted in Rauch's pictorial skills and clever use of space and form. The show was an old fashioned funhouse of eighties figurative and visual sensibilities. This is Postmodernism (which is actually a latter day branch of Surrealism, c'mon now, you know it's true…) at its most fun.

First I have to admire the way Rauch uses color. The lush tonalities are rich and full. He is not afraid of using value, exploiting the color tones to accentuate volume and scale. His reds are particularly rich and expressive, often used for interiors, offsetting the cool hues employed in the rendering of the figures. In the works at David Zwirner gallery the painted scenes had a strange, compelling tension. The red walls framed the cutout protagonists' interior worlds. In "Nue Rollen" the room housing the golden stage is painted red (a reference to Matisse's Red Studio?) The cool colored stock characters in the audience toast themselves and create spectacles while the actors in warmer tones work out the play on stage. Who is acting and who is staging an event? Red plays an important role in "Leporello," where the room sets the tone for some heated plans being formed between swag and servant. Who is in charge and who is the architect of the plan? The hues play out the story in an old fashioned, almost Catholic sense. It really is a clever use of color.

Second I have to admire the way he handles the paint. His pictures are convincing in the world he portrays. I've always believed that a visual logic should permeate a picture. The artist, of course, determines the rules, but the way a passage is painted should adhere to that interior code. One should be able to communicate visions clearly, and Rauch does this in spades. It's great fun to look at. In "Blauer Elefant" I enjoyed the way a playground animal, becomes both shelter and menace, played against the run down neoclassic building, which promises light and comfort but remains closed and uninviting. A figure hunches on the stoop, another relaxes under the animal. All of it painted with assured confidence and aplomb. His brush work and technique remain tied to a European figurative tradition rich with metaphor and substance, so unlike our homegrown POMOs Fischl and Tansey, who rely on Henri, Hollywood and photography.

Finally I have to admire the sheer delight that other people were having at the show. OK, it's populist and figurative, but like VH1's eighties redux, I enjoy well produced nostalgia. I went a few times with the hope of seeing others looking. It's really great when people move up and back, look at the sides of the thing, then step back to ruminate again. The discontinuity of the pictures, the way spaces fall away and reconfigure, the open stories and historical references all allow one to play with the visual images. It was assured, clever and entertaining in a way that painting has ceased to be.