NEO RAUCH | Schule

David Zwirner, New York
Acquired from the above by David Teiger in 2002

Harald Szeeman, Daniel Birnbaum and Lynne Cooke, Eds., Neo Rauch, Ostfildern 2002, n.p.
Exh. Cat., Maastricht, Bonnefantenmusem, The Vincent Van Gogh Bi-Annual Award for Contemporary Art in Europe, 2002, p. 53, illustrated
Exh. Cat., New York, The Museum of Modern Art, Drawings Now: Eight Propositions, 2002, n.p., no. 46, illustrated in colour

Colour: The colour in the catalogue illustration is fairly accurate although the yellow tones are brighter and more vibrant in the original. Condition: This work is in very good and original condition. All surface irregularities are in keeping with the artist's working process. Very close inspection reveals some minute chips, nicks and media accretions to the artist's frame and some superficial scuffs and splash accretions in places to the artist's Plexiglas.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Schule offers a supreme and early example of Neo Rauch’s spectacular articulation of the realm between memory and dream. Executed in 1995, the present work leaves the viewer at once puzzled and captivated, Rauch’s highly unique pictorial expression embodied by enigmatic narrative details and Surrealist compositional elements. The 1990s was an exceptionally productive and experimental decade for the artist, during which he formulated his archetypal amalgamation of Socialist Realism, German Romanticism and Surrealism. Through this combination, the artist’s intrinsic questions about identity and history emerge, situating his artistic production at the profound intersection between personal and national history. In the present work an army of students stand uniformly with their backs to the viewer, placed in a curiously evocative schoolroom scene. Eerie abstract forms mutate into chairs, desks, blackboards and windows, all in Rauch’s characteristic saturated, industrial colours of ochre, red, black and grey. Perhaps most striking, the ceiling of this uncanny schoolroom is absent, and instead a violent yellow and grey sky emerges, foretelling of doom, despair and darkness. Thus the schoolroom of Schule becomes a formidable dreamscape—or rather a nightmare—in which all coherent sense of certainty and knowing is lost. Rauch’s employment of strange, mysterious figures and ambiguous landscapes recall the celebrated work of Surrealist masters such as Salvador Dalí and René Magritte, for their metaphysical paintings of fragile and exotic landscapes greatly influenced Rauch’s highly iconoclastic and symbolic pictorial approach, imbuing his retro-futuristic fantasies with poignant art historical reference. While Rauch is widely celebrated as a leading artist of the New Leipzig School, his work eclipses the intellectual sphere of his native country; he is undeniably one of the most important artists of his generation. Schule powerfully illustrates Rauch’s exceptional dreamlike, hallucinatory visual language and unbounded imagination. Art historian Gottfried Boehm asserts, “Rauch’s paintings show us many rudiments, many fragments and figurations of possible worlds…Rauch’s custom of working with the memory of a pictorial story…also awakes our pleasure in getting wise to him and letting ourselves becomes totally involved in the allusions they ignite” (Gottfried Boehm cited in: Exh. Cat., Wolfsburg, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Neo Rauch – Neue Rollen. Paintings 1993-2006, 2006, p. 39).