Edited by Gerd Harry Lybke

Neo Rauch (born 1960) is one of the most important figurative painters of his generation and a pioneer of the so-called new Leipzig school of painting. Gespenster (Ghosts) is published for Rauch’s most recent solo exhibition of the same name at Galerie Eigen+Art Leipzig, in 2013. The catalogue contains the first reproductions of the 20 new paintings that were shown in the exhibition, as well as detailed views of the canvases and installation shots. Rauch’s new paintings portray brooding phantasmagoric scenarios composed of several different snapshots that spatially (and sometimes narratively) overlay each other. A rusty, red-brown undertone suffuses the pictures, its muteness emphasized against intensely chromatic areas. Unlike the large-scale paintings, Rauch’s smaller works are softer and more graphic, with isolated figures and deserted landscapes, like fragments from completed pictures that have become independent.