Neo Rauch. At the Well

533 West 19th Street

David Zwirner is pleased to present an exhibition of new works by Neo Rauch, on view at 533 West 19th Street in New York. At the Well brings together small and large format paintings that expand the artist’s unique iconography of eccentric figures, animals, and hybrids within vaguely familiar but imaginary settings.

While several of the characters reappear throughout his compositions, each of the works on view nonetheless emerges as a self-contained entity—a standalone epic complete with its own unique storyline. Rauch refers to this sense of integrity as a painting’s “nervous system,” a metaphor which also elucidates how the otherwise arbitrary and often otherworldly narratives retain a sense of plausibility. As he notes, “As soon as I have the feeling that the thing has blood circulating through it, a nervous system, a skeleton, then questions as to the message become…marginal.”1

On the occasion of the exhibition, David Zwirner Books will publish a fully illustrated catalogue with a text by Norman Rosenthal.

1 Neo Rauch, cited in Rita Pokorny, “You won’t find an ‘Untitled’ among my works [interview],” The Art Newspaper no. 224 (May 2011), p. 51.