18 August 2007

paralogical

I finally made it up to the Met to see Neo Rauch. I’ve long been a fan of the work but, for some reason, have always been a little suspicious. Was the work too easy to love? Was it manipulative? Or was I simply following the inevitable backlash against a successful artist with a distinct style?

It was good to go with someone who didn’t know the work (and, more importantly, who was tolerant of me thinking aloud and trying to figure it all out… Thanks, Kate!) I had been thinking about my doubts for ages, and I just wanted to walk in and look carefully at what was in front of my eyes, to find my way in as if for the first time. The simple fact is this: they are beautiful paintings. I love the odd color palette, the tight compositions, the exploded surrealism, dream-like but less obviously “eerie” or annoyingly psycho-sexual than classic Surrealism… In fact, there’s little obvious about Rauch at all.

Well, wait a minute, without a doubt, Rauch is purposely evoking a bygone era, that of some lost world in Communist Eastern Europe, with somber bundled figures wandering Tyrolean villages. That fabulous color palette, painted almost always flat and faded-looking, reminds me of early package graphics, perhaps from the cardboard cover of a now-forgotten Latvian boardgame. “Sunday at the Gulag,” perhaps (for ages 4 and up!) Here and there, the odd 19th-century gentleman makes an appearance, and the strange rituals of alienation suggested have a scientific bent (reminding me a bit of my long-standing favorite, Michael Borremans.) Of course I’m predisposed to loving the Old Made-Up Past, so I’m well aware of the simple push toward nostalgia that Rauch’s work gives.

But it’s not the False History that makes the work feel fake or manipulative. There’s an odd disappointment that comes after looking for a while. According to Rauch (well, in the Met’s press, anyway) much of the work is made from his dreams. Images, figures and shapes are suggested and painted directly, it seems, and the narrative, such as it is, is built organically and, well, oneirically. But the more one looks – or rather the more one reads – the less one knows. I’m not someone who needs Simplicity and Clear Messages (far from it! Bring me all your Weird and Vague!) But the sum of Rauch’s symbols feels lesser than its parts. I used to disagree with that old saw that says there’s nothing more boring than Other People’s Dreams (mostly because I loved listening to those of my friends!) But after wandering aimlessly through Neo Rauch’s subconscious, I get bored and start staring at the drapes….

However, as my attention wanders, I find myself back delighting in the paint again. Back to the colors and the balance of shapes, thrilling at the way the ground, overpainted, erases a foreground figure or the way small lines of smoke become sideways calligraphy… The work is just as tasty, but perhaps not quite so filling a meal.

Oddly enough, as we were leaving the show, I spied Dana Schutz wandering the show, so easily recognizable with her awesome ‘fro (yeah ok, that Vogue article helped too…) Anyway, though it’s rather unlike me, I introduced myself, intrigued to hear a real painter’s response to the show. She was very friendly and sweet, but in the end, kinda felt the same way I did: a bit mystified but intrigued by the paint. In fact, her very first response was in how matte Rauch’s color was up close, marked with odd, almost-random fat patches of glossier paint. Ask a painter’s question, get a painter’s answer, I guess…