A show at the historic Städel Museum catalogues German painting from a breakout era.

An exhibition of new work raises insights about the history of culture, fashion, and representation.

Neo Rauch is a prodigious talent. His canvases are lush with painterly dexterity, compelling characterization, and compositional intrigue. But, as with Walton Ford’s animal portraits, there is more about these costume dramas that transports viewers back to the amalgamated past they never knew — the very definition of nostalgia — than truly puts them in touch with a sense of being here and now.

Neo is perfectly forenamed for an artist in whom, to paraphrase architectural theorist Charles Jencks, the wasms have become an ism. Rauch’s paintings, fusing elements of romanticism and realism from the last two centuries, resist the idea that anachronism and rejuvenation might be at odds with one another.

David Zwirner 525 W 19 Street New York, NY  10011 212-727-2070 May 9-June 18, 2005 Neo Rauch is a prolific artist whose skill is put to the service of his imagination.  His large-scale, often mural size paintings at David Zwirner might seem to employ the usual grab bag of tricks other painters use, but Rauch … Continued