BADEN-BADEN, GERMANY.- The grand summer exhibition 2011 at the Museum Frieder Burda is dedicated to Neo Rauch. Around 40 main works by the artist from Leipzig from the past 20 years are shown from 28 May to 18 September 2011. Many of these works are publicly exhibited for the first time. They reflect the abundance of imagination and topics covered by the artist.

There is a boundless force within the picturesque world of the painter Neo Rauch. His subjects seem like a mixture of realism and surrealism, influenced by pop-art and comics. Inhabited by strange figures, partly eccentrically equipped with costumes and props, great scenarios are created, that touch all your senses. The world is turned into a ridiculous theater that knows no linear timeline. If you look more closely you might even discover a story behind the picture.

The painter from Leipzig was immediately taken with the idea of presenting his works at the museum planned by the architect Richard Meier. On his first visit, Neo Rauch said: “The building convinced me straight away, as architectural and sculptural setting in the existing context. This is not natural because I usually set high benchmarks as to contemporary architecture. Concerning the indoor space concept, I can only say that I couldn’t avoid imagining my pictures there. In my mind, I immediately started placing the pictures inside the building”.

Four significant large format paintings as well as ten drawings by Neo Rauch are part of the collection Frieder Burda. Frieder Burda says: “To me, Neo Rauch is a very important artist, who follows his path with unmistakable paintings. He certainly is one of the most important contemporary painters. When I visited Rauch in his studio in Leipzig with regard to this exhibition, I saw a large almost finished oil painting titled: Die Ausschüttung (“disbursement”). I was fascinated by the myth, the mystery, by the colors, by the charisma of this painting“.

Neo Rauch, born in Leipzig in 1960, is one of the most influential international artists of his generation. He studied at the Leipzig University of Graphics and Book art with Arno Rink, then became an assistant and from 2005 to 2009 professor and since 2009 he has been honorary professor there.

His art can be seen in the tradition of old masters. As modern points of reference, the artist himself names Beckmann, Bacon, Beuys, Baselitz and his tutors from Leipzig.

In 1997 he first stepped into the public with a large exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Leipzig. In 2006, the Art Museum in Wolfsburg dedicated a retrospective to him. At the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the exhibition ”para“ followed in 2007. Last year, Munich (Pinakothek Museums) as well as Leipzig (Museum of Fine Arts) honored the painter with a large double exhibition named Begleiter (“companions”).