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The Week in Germany: Saxony Special
	With the reopening of the baroque treasure trove the Grünes Gewölbe and Dresden's 800 year celebrations, Saxony's past has received a great deal of attention this summer. In our second Saxony special, we focus on modern Saxony: contemporary art by painters from Dresden and Leipzig in Washington, robust and growing trade between businesses in Saxony and the U.S., and more positive developments in Saxony's alternative energy sector.

September 22, 2006

Made in Saxony: Paintings on a Grand Scale With a Sense of Surrealism, Social Realism and Mystery

Saxony boasts a long tradition as a centre of German industry, commerce and the arts. Baroque Dresden is one of the architectural jewels of Europe, and the Saxon capital has also been home to many modern artistic movements, notably serving as a hotbed of German Expressionism in the early 20th century.

Martin Kobe, Untitled, 2003 (Rubell Family Collection)

Today Dresden and Leipzig, Saxony's other major cultural metropolis, are still churning out creative talent. Contemporary works by resident artists that have been snapped up by the acclaimed Miami-based Rubell Family Collection are now on display at the Katzen Arts Center, a sprawling sand-colored complex featuring performances and exhibitions at the American University in Washington, D.C.

Two shows that opened earlier this month at the Katzen and run through October 29 highlight works by Saxon artists. "Life After Death: New Leipzig Paintings from the Rubell Family Collection", is a nationally touring exhibition making its only mid-Atlantic appearance at the Katzen. According to the museum's website, this show "focuses on a much discussed, often controversial development in contemporary art - grandly-scaled paintings that echo traditions of social realism, particularly as it was practiced in East Germany".

"After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the seven artists represented - Tilo Baumgärtel, Tim Eitel, Martin Kobe, Neo Rauch, Christoph Ruckhäberle, David Schnell and Matthias Weischer - eschewed video, photography and installation art and chose to study figurative painting at the conservative Leipzig Art Academy," the Katzen adds. "They persisted, creating a 'school' that blends dream-elements of surrealism and a modernist spatial sense and matter-of-fact narrative."

Eberhard Havekost, Totale Idylle, 1996
(Rubell Family Collection)

A second exhibition, "Eberhard Havekost: 1996-2006 Paintings from the Rubell Family Collection" highlights the work of a Dresden artist who is one of Germany's most celebrated painters. Havekost, who lives and works in both Dresden and Berlin, rarely shows his pieces outside Europe or New York. The Rubell retrospective of his work at the Katzen thus provides a rare glimpse into his starkly mesmerizing oeuvre, consisting largely of images based on altered and manipulated photographs and video clips.

The Katzen describes his work as enigmatically gripping and more than initially meets the eye: "Although his subjects are mostly bland urban details such as office windows, automobile windshields and the sides of buses, as well as contemporary figure groups and portrait heads - the precision and simplification of his technique create a sense of mystery, otherworldliness and anxiety."

Links:

The Katzen Arts Center at American University

The Rubell Family Collection

More about Eberhard Havekost

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