Tuesday 6 July 2010

Neo Rauch At Museum Bilden Kunst Leipzig

Whilst in Leipzig I went to the Museum Der bildenden Kunste. It is located centrally about 5 minutes from the main station. It has a very good collection, and the building really shows of the paintings, sculpture and installation well. The gallery is literally a big cuboid that has been spiced up all modern by cladding glass over the entire building.

Whilst there I got to see the Neo Rauch exhibition. It was very good, it is not often you are really impressed with both the layout and the overall quality of an exhibition but Neo Rauch's work was very good. I have only ever got to look at his paintings in books before and in person they are all the more impressive. I managed to get a few snaps, despite the gallery's guards impressively dogged security (they would follow you from room to room which in the upstairs galleries was a little unnerving being the only person on an entire floor, it was a little like having a surly guide who didn't speak. Just stared at you..). The exhibition is sort of a retrospective with works spanning from his early career right up to the present including works he created while Professor at the Leipzig Academy of Visual Arts.

Scale clearly plays an important part in his work and some are huge. The juxtaposition of almost every element in the painting, be it historical period, figure and landscape creates a strange hybrid between surrealism and socialist realism.

The Museums website states:
'Neo Rauch, born in Leipzig in 1960, is undoubtedly the most internationally important and most discussed German painter of his generation. The Museum of Fine Arts and the Pinakothek der Moderne Munich dedicate his work in a comprehensive exhibition, which is to see both places simultaneously. For more information about the exhibition on www.neo-smoking-ausstellung.de' (http://www.mdbk.de/start.php4)


The pics aren't great but they give an idea of the works.



Some of the paintings in the collection were extremely good. Highlights include Caspar David Freidrich's, Arnold Brocklin 'Isle of the Dead' (third version), Max Klinger 'Peeing death' as well as his sculptures. So all in all if you are ever in Leipzig I recommend you go!




PS: A website with better pictures of Neo Rauch's paintings: http://www.davidzwirner.com/artists/12/selected_works_1.htm

Thursday 1 July 2010

More Sketches From Erfurt

Some more of the sketches I made whilst in Germany,


This is the view from our window in our tower block in Erfurt. It did however feel cosy and I enjoyed drawing this view from the window on the hot and sunny days.


A quick drawing of the Krämer bridge in Erfurt across the Gera. In German its called the Krämerbrücke and means 'Merchants Bridge'. It has houses across the entire length of the bridge and has shops etc. on the bridge itself. It is a very interesting example of what no doubt many ancient bridges might have looked like.

A very quick sketch I made whilst in Gotha (mentioned in an earlier post about Lucas Cranach) of the view down into the old looking town centre. The architecture was sort of reminiscent of the architecture of the old town/royal mile edinburgh. The shapes were not perfect and parts of buildings bulged as if they were full of rice and ready to explode. The view interested me because of the large fountain in the foreground, the huge (it was really huge) crane in the middle ground wrapping wreath around the May pole, the old town hall and of in the distance the huge numbers of wind turbines.
www.andrew-smith-artist.co.uk/