One of the most influential figurative painters of his generation, Neo
Rauch presents bold, new work in PROPAGANDA.
Rauch is widely celebrated for his captivating compositions that bring
together figurative painting and surrealism into an entirely new kind of
visual encounter. They often hint at broader narratives and
histories--seemingly reconnecting with artistic traditions of
realism--but they remain dreamlike and impossible to reduce to a single
story. Though his art is highly refined and executed with great
technical skill, Rauch himself stresses the intuitive, deeply personal
nature of how he works. As the artist notes, "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."
Eight large-scale canvases and seven smaller, more intimately scaled
works continue the artist's exploration of figuration and the ambiguous
nature of meaning in visual art. In some of the larger works, the
saturation of the canvas with characters, objects, and, forms, all
rendered at different scales and in conflicting arrangements, creates a
collage-like quality--a figurative scrapbook of Rauch's personal
iconography.
The publication features a short story by acclaimed novelist and
playwright Daniel Kehlmann, which was inspired by the paintings in this
book. The fantastical text moves between present-day New York and an
unknown time of enchanted forests, knights, and witches, exploring the
many layers found in Rauch's canvases. Published on the occasion of the
artist's solo exhibition at David Zwirner, Hong Kong in 2019, Neo
Rauch: PROPAGANDA is available in both English-only and bilingual
English/traditional Chinese editions.
