Curated by Brett Littman and Jeff Fleming with Amber Harper
Speaking about his studio, Neo Rauch has commented that “it is necessary to enter this place in a state of psychological and physical ventilation.” One might adopt the same mindset when approaching his paintings, entangled as they can be in the dank and heavy meshes of inexpressible histories. One aerated mode of entry might be through his drawings, here granted their first extensive American exhibition, in collaboration with the Des Moines Art Center. The 179 items on view, dating from 1994 to 2017, should give a clear idea of what Brett Littman calls the artist’s “somewhat adversarial and complicated relationship” to the medium of drawing, and in doing so shed fresh light (and air) on the painter from Leipzig.
