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
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