Neo Rauch at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Neo Rauch was born in Leipzig, Germany, in 1960. He is a contemporary painter who uses styles from the Social Realists, Pop, and the Surrealists movements. Rauch is also a well known international artist who is represented in New York by the David Zwirner gallery at 525 West 19^th Street. Currently, he has created a group of works for The Giaconda and Joseph King Gallery on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, titled “para”.

Para is a woman who has given birth to a number of children, or the children themselves. Rauch has specifically created all new paintings for this space, as if the title para references him in this act; the act of creation, of something like a child. The show in another setting may not have been as well received, but in the Metropolitan Museum, the show is stellar. The paintings are strikingly strange, yet somehow work in a confused mix of old and new iconography. Die Fuge / (The Gap) (2007) is the largest, which hangs outside of the smaller gallery and in the bigger, contemporary collection. Die Fuge has a strange sense of time where there are mythical human-creatures, old-style uniformed soldiers, and a woman with a double-vision head who has been misplaced from the forties. There is also modern architecture and contemporary graffiti on the building. Der Nachste Zug / (The Next Move /The Next Draw) (2007) shows an interior scene of men at a card game and a man and woman at the back table. Between the spaces, Rauch uses linearly abstract smoke lines, which hardly make sense. Yet, he pulls it off. They are the most abstract forms in the exhibit, as if Rauch can play with his paint and not loose sight of his imagination and story telling. The back wall and the floors also appear abstracted from his chosen use of textures. Next to the men at the card table, there is a shrine like structure that holds a book. Along the top of the shrine is the word, para. Once again Rauch is referencing his role as a creator. His socialist, East German background helps the viewer to understand that these creations are not narcissistic interpretations of himself. Instead, Rauch is creating a story, and perhaps telling a history that may or may not have existed. This is reminiscent of the formation of Germany as a country and it’s creation of a heritage with mythologies and heroines. It is difficult to tell if Rauch has chosen to use this historical reference as a commentary of his experience in Germany. One would assume that these contrasting governments made a great impact on him and these stories are how he makes sense of his culture and experiences. Another historical technique that Rauch uses is from Chinese history. Chinese scroll paintings used transitional spaces to tell narration and time. Warten auf die / (Waiting for the Barbarians (2007) is a prime example of this because of its landscape backgrounds and transitional space from mountains to war- ridden fields.

Neo Rauch’s new works are successful because of his use of transitional space, but also because he successfully references his culture while still managing to freak out the viewer a bit. It is appreciating to see rendered works that don’t have to be taken too seriously, yet can be contemplated as dialogue of contemporary German culture and their mix-match themes that Americans can so well relate to.

The Shape of Space

The Shape of Space currently on view at the Guggenheim Museum consists of various artists from different movements. The cohesive theme is geometry referenced or used to show space. There are particular curatorial issues where the show continues to be added upon from April to July, leaving many blank walls and a feeling of seeing work, that has been shown before- except hung next to different works. Bluntly put, don’t pay the full admission price until the show is fully hung.

The Guggenheim Guide briefs the visitor on the theme and some of the artworks currently on view. It references the historical artistic endeavor to portray space through cubism, linear perspective, and minimalism. The first work to stand out is Sarah Morris’s Mandalay Bay (Las Vegas) (1999). It references contemporary geometric abstraction based artists such as Julie Mehretu and many of the younger painters emerging from school. It stands out particularly because of its larger size compared to the rest of the works, and it precise, bright color palette. Strangely enough, it is hung next to Agnes Martin’s White Stone (1965), which is from the minimalist movement and addresses space in a very different fashion. Agnes chose a minimal white oil paint on linen with a small grid motif drawn into the surface. Sometimes minimalist art can be a bit heavy on the conceptual side, but in this particular case, the minimalist work of Martin and Morris next to eachother creates a dialogue between space and the lack of space tied together with a grid theme. One can begin to put together a consistent theme climbing the Rotunda Gallery, difficult to distinguish unless the visitor is an avid Guggenheim Guide reader or is keen on grids and geometry. Not until seeing these pieces side by side does one appreciate the work of Carl Adre or Laszlo Moholy-Nagy. How backwards does this idea feel? Moholy-Nagy in particular have two pieces hung that have both a quality of contemporary work and an old pioneer of the tradition of geometric abstraction. He used new materials like plexi-glass and painted planes in space, but also used the wall behind as another use of space with the shadow on the wall. Piotr Uklanski’s Dance Floor (1968) is somewhat overbearing for a museum setting. The constant hip-hop pop music plays in the background while colored squares below light up in various grid patterns. It receives most of the attention in the exhibit, but somehow people are missing their “thug get-ups” and a stiff drink in their hands. However, can appreciate Uklanski’s take on urban culture in 1968, but by adding contemporary hip-hop music to the work today, makes it latent with unprocessed cultural commentary and seems indirectly out of context with the date on the plaquard. It is difficult to imagine the artist isn’t sitting home now, laughing to himself about blaring hip-hop in the Guggenheim for the first time.

All of the artists chosen visually deal with geometry and space but what is most interesting is not the works chosen, or the curatorial theme developed by the institution, but how it references contemporary art trends. It is urban, architectural, contest capitalism and is old, yet somehow new and fits in New York. Perhaps this collection of works can be personally identifying for what has happened in the past and validates the forward trend of its re-emergence today. It will be interesting to return to the show when it is fully hung, and hopefully it will develop into a fully processable show, that does not wreak of – we had nothing else to hang up, so why not.

Niels van Eijk- Bobbin Lace

Domestic lighting; post B. Franklin connotes a filament surrounded by sensitive, heat-conducting glass. Niels van Eijk the Dutch artist hailing from the Netherlands is renown for their woven lighting systems, which are unquestionably spectacular. The clean seemingly simple design is highly loaded with subtext.

Plait from Fiber optics and trace meal wire the Bobbin Lace Lamp is composed of five main elements. A brief dense twist of fibers extruding from the ceiling, immediately following, a conical pan of fibers assembling a circle parallel to the ground; I aptly suspect there are exactly three-hundred-sixty-five fibers protruding from the dense braid aligning so properly to said circle. Nearly four feet of expanding knot-work connect the first ring to another nearly two hundred percent its own size.

The seemingly simple design is now creating problems in which it solves; the material handling has clearly been manipulated to appear as if it is not obeying the fundamental laws of gravity. A tighter stitch towards the center creates elegant, arabesque curvature through the visual experience thus far. Obeying gravity blindly now, the lower circle lures the viewer (with striking resemblance to methods adapted by cave glowworms). Long, thin, glowing, shiny, shimmering, delicate strands hang freely from said ring; each varying slightly in length.
Other dominant variables in the work include but are not limited to the scale of the rings parallel to the floor and the negative space created by the dynamic handling of the material; the negative space fills the object with solidity through a highly sophisticated activation of the physical space it occupies. The inescapable fact that the object at hand is radiating commands the attention not only of the viewer but the space surrounding it (again a highly sophisticated method of activation, although basic is very well considered by the artist.)

The object’s radiance and gesture also transcribes a figure, actually quite strongly, incorporates a sense of gravity, scale, and a voluptuous sensory experience. The figure is quite feminine, elegant, and curvaceous. The artist elevates the subject to a dominating position, scaled noticeably larger than life-size at nine feet, ten inches (not to mention it is literally higher than the viewer). This full body portrait is complete without all of the traditional elements however, there are no appendages (i.e. arms, legs, head)!

The fixed article holding the gesture is related to a simple, traditional dress design. A strong dialectical problem however, its glowing, and it would not be anywhere near the modest adornment it claims to be at a glance. Positioned in such a manner that one cannot walk under, to look directly up into the work, it cannot be exposed. One sees what is present but cannot experience it in any other manner than what seems to be the artists intention; again emphasizing the dominance of the subject over the viewer.

The work appears the same from every angle, it emits spherical references; one cannot help but to make the connection between Bobbin Lace Lamp (keeping in mind it is emitting photons, and radiating heat) and the Sun. The artist has now accurately presented the sun at static and transformed the viewer into a revolving planetary system, again accurately, sustaining life, and obeying the act of revolutions. The connection could be further drawn to include the dialectical conversation between women and the sun, articulating the life-granting prowess of the sun in conjunction with the act of internal child development endowed by solely women. The sun is arguably the entity within our entire galaxy that we as Earth inhabitants are most dependent upon (grass is the primary food source for more animalia than any other); we as humans are arguably most directly dependent upon women if for no other reason than the action of childbirth.

The clear curatorial goals include illustrating a severe dialectic; namely one involved with a domestic craft, specifically string-work whether it be laced, tied, sewn, rubber, cut metal with an oxyacetylene torch or even fiber-optic. The defining element tying these works together is that the subjects at hand are antithetical to the traditional use and understanding of the their placement within society, culture, and our personal experiences. Clearly, this work was exceptionally chosen as it stands to be the defining work in the show; most illustrating the intent of the curator behind the grouping of the works chosen. Two major themes expressed by the curators within the catalogue are involved with light and scale, in the presented terms, there is no work in my mind that rivals Bobbin Lace Lamp in consideration of scale and lightness.

Written by Trevor Freedland