Neo Rauch's Enigmatic Paintings at Museum Frieder Burda

Neo Rauch, a German painter often criticized in France for his supposedly commercial and kitsch style, is the subject of an exhibition at the Museum Frieder Burda in Baden-Baden from May 28 to September 18, 2011. Curated by Werner Spies, the show presents a selection of works that highlight Rauch's deliberate opacity and resistance to political or psychoanalytic interpretation. Rauch's paintings, laden with signs, symbols, and references to visual arts, cinema, and comics, aim to achieve a state of 'non-verbalization' (Nichtverbalisierbarkeit), keeping the viewer at a distance. His approach, while evoking surrealist montage and scale distortions, rejects easy decoding, drawing comparisons to the self-reflexive practices of Gerhard Richter and Georg Baselitz in the 1960s. Despite his unpopularity in France, Rauch is aware of the risk of his work being dismissed as 'Sunday surrealist painting.' A concurrent exhibition, 'Neo Rauch und Rosa Loy: Hinter den Garten,' runs from September 2 to November 16, 2011, at the Essl Museum in Klosterneuburg, Austria.