Neo Rauch and the relationship between artists, gallery owners, and art auctions

Art auctions are currently booming because more and more people believe that our money isn't safe in banks. Surprisingly, however, democratic outrage over this fact remains rather limited, so it could be a very long time before the banks change their behavior.

Until the financial world is forced to exercise the usual due diligence in managing the funds entrusted to it, investing in tangible assets a serious alternative. For many people, a work of art represents an excellent tangible asset for investment, and such art is offered at art auctions .

That's not the only reason: Some people have made a lot of money from this out-of-control financial world and now want to buy very specific, trendy works of art, and some art can only be bought at art auctions.

For example, a work of art by Neo Rauch , a currently incredibly popular artist whose works occasionally come up for auction. However, when it comes to art by Neo Rauch, the art auction business also reveals an interesting downside for investors:

A work by Neo Rauch is available at auction for €800,000, while the same work would have cost only €300,000 if purchased through a gallery. This, in turn, reveals the value of a traditional business relationship, even for the art buyer .

A business relationship that is currently threatened with being abolished art auctions artist and gallery owner , art creator and art distributor, both connected in a fruitful partnership.

Does an artist need such an external representative? An artist who simply wants to work in peace or who has no knack for sales is certainly well advised to have such a partner.

Very often it is also the gallery owner who promotes the artist in his early days, who provides financial support and who knows and can inspire completely different people than the young artist.

Neo Rauch is definitely one of those artists who simply want to work in peace, and he could certainly have used a partner with knowledge of art distribution, as a glance at his biography suggests:

Neo Rauch was born in Leipzig in April 1960 and grew up with his grandparents because his parents died in an accident shortly after his birth. After graduating from high school, he went to the Leipzig Academy of Visual Arts to study painting and graphic design.

At this institution, one of the oldest state art academies in Germany, he was able to attract the attention of exceptional teachers: from 1981 to 1986 he studied under the renowned painter Arno Rink, then professor and head of the department for painting and graphics, later also rector of the academy.

From 1986 to 1990, Rauch was the master student of Bernhard Heisig, the second famous painter who deserves mention in the early stages of the emergence of the so-called “Leipzig School” .

Rauch initially remained loyal to his home university: from 1993 to 1998 he worked as an assistant at the Leipzig Academy of Fine Arts. During this time, through his collaboration with Rink and Heisig, he definitively developed into one of the most important representatives of the Leipzig School. This school aimed to preserve a part of the in the recently collapsed GDR , but initially found little resonance in the West – there, the focus was solely on conceptual art and abstract painting .

the world's art market developed in Rauch's direction: Until the turn of the millennium, the international art market was completely under the spell of the "Young British Artists ," centered around Damien Hirst (see the article about him) and with the support of the powerful and wealthy Charles Saatchi.

Towards the end of the 1990s, the euphoria surrounding the “Young British Artists” desperately needed a breather; curiosity sought new themes and found wonderfully contrasting art movements in a society that was just beginning to coalesce from East and West. The Leipzig School was the art school that had the least to do with the ideas of the “Young British Artists,” making it the logical target and focal point of the emerging trend in the international art market.

Not bad for Neo Rauch; from 1999 onwards, he was invited to numerous exhibitions in the most prestigious galleries in the USA and developed into a star on the international art market in the following decade.

In his homeland, Rauch had not received much attention up to that point, and he doesn't want to see his paintings created before the fall of the Berlin Wall anyway.

Only with the possibility of practicing art without influence did he develop his own style; by the end of the 1990s he had already received several awards in Germany, including a grant in Nuremberg in 1992 and the art prize of the Leipziger Volkszeitung (1997, combined with a solo exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts Leipzig) and his first exhibitions (“Randgebiete”, Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst Leipzig, 2000).

But great fame in his homeland only came after the artist was discovered abroad; his work was exhibited in the Albertina in Vienna and the MoMA in New York before exhibitions in Germany became more frequent.

For the German observer who is not yet familiar with Neo Rauch, this scorn in his homeland often becomes more understandable when he considers Rauch's art: even his more recent works are sometimes almost painfully reminiscent of the pompous-monumental works of socialist realism, with all their contrived glorification of the worker's world.

An open-minded viewer will find it easier to appreciate the vibrant colors and three-dimensional figures, discovering elements of comics and pop art, and probably a good dose of surrealism. Rauch is thus considered a "magical realist" whose paintings appear simultaneously whimsical, suggestive, and timeless, and one will likely continue to discover something new in a Neo Rauch painting for years to come.

The “magical” artist Rauch is represented by two gallery owners: In Germany by Gerd Harry Lybke , the owner of the Eigen + Art gallery in Leipzig and Berlin, and in New York by David Zwirner , the son of the German gallery veteran Rudolf Zwirner, both gallery owners with a great deal of personal commitment and business acumen.

Both gallery owners are also philanthropists in the art world, and against this background it is quite easy to understand why you have to register with Lybke for a painting by Neo Rauch, but in return you get it for a realistic price.

In return, the gallery owner ensures that Neo Rauch is not bothered by media hype, but retains his freedom to conceive and create new works in peace in the old cotton mill, which he and his wife Rosa Loy have chosen as a suitable place for their artistic work.

Rauch's work is generally not just about sales : from 2005 to 2009, he taught as a professor at his alma mater in Leipzig, where he went far beyond the expected duties of a professor to support his students. You can admire beautiful works by Rauch completely free of charge in Naumburg, where he designed the stained-glass windows in the Elisabeth Chapel.

And he has just donated his entire graphic oeuvre to the city of Aschersleben (where he grew up with his grandparents). This oeuvre is managed by a foundation he runs jointly with the city. Since June 2012, these works have been permanently accessible to the public at the Bestehornpark Education Center in Aschersleben. Ultimately, you don't need a gallery owner (Gerd Harry Lybke is involved with the foundation) or an art auction to view artworks by this artist, who was among the most important painters of his time.

You might draw another positive conclusion from the price range shown above for the sale of Neo Rauch's works: Engaging with art is worthwhile, even financially. And it's certainly worthwhile on an intellectual level, which is why it's so much fun to search for a new, exciting artist, for example, on Kunstplaza .

If you would like to learn more about this artist or perhaps even purchase one of his works that is currently offered for sale in international galleries or has been auctioned, then you should visit the following website: artnet – More information & artworks by Neo Rauch .