Rosa Loy and Neo Rauch ECHOCollection PERLMUTT

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  Neo Rauch, Influx, 2016. Oil on canvas, 200 x 250 cm. Foto Uwe Walter, Berlin. © Neo Rauch, VG Bild-Kunst. Courtesy Neo Rauch, Galerie Eigen+Art Leipzig

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  Neo Rauch, After the schift, 2011. Oil on canvas, 210 x 300 cm. Photo Uwe Walter, Berlin. © Neo Rauch, VG Bild-Kunst. Courtesy Neo Rauch, Galerie Eigen+Art Leipzig

Few artistic couples in the history of visual art combine personal closeness and stylistic independence as compellingly as Rosa Loy and Neo Rauch. Although they have lived and worked together for decades, their artistic worlds remain unmistakably distinct. It is precisely this tension between proximity and difference that gives this exhibition its unique fascination.

Born in Zwickau in 1958, Rosa Loy initially studied horticulture before transferring to the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig (Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig). This unusual background continues to shape her work today. Nature appears not as a backdrop but as a symbolic space resonating with human experience. Plants, gardens, and organic processes become carriers of a visual language that speaks of transformation, growth, connection, and the creative power of living things.

Born in Leipzig in 1960, Neo Rauch became the internationally best-known representative of the New Leipzig School after German reunification. His paintings combine elements of realism with dream logic, memory, and myth. Workers, machines, historical fragments, and enigmatic actions encounter one another in pictorial worlds that resist clear interpretation and derive their particular power from this very ambiguity.

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  Rosa Loy, Neo Rauch, Construction, 2020. Oil and casein on canvas, 40 x 50 cm. Photo Uwe Walter, Berlin. © Rosa Loy, Neo Rauch, VG Bild-Kunst. Courtesy Rosa Loy, Galerie Kleindienst Leipzig & Courtesy Neo Rauch, Galerie Eigen+Art Leipzig

While Rauch often explores historically and culturally male-coded spaces of power and history, Loy focuses on female communities. At the center of her paintings are women who appear as self-determined protagonists. They design gardens, perform rituals, nurture relationships, and create their own systems of order. Loy does not pursue feminist deconstruction; rather, she offers a poetic alternative. Her women do not fight against the world—they create a new one.

Rauch’s works, by contrast, resemble excavations of a collective memory. The former GDR remains present as an atmospheric layer without becoming an overt political program. His figures build, transport, observe, and act, yet the meaning of their actions remains unresolved. This productive ambiguity has become one of the defining characteristics of his international reception.

Despite all their differences, both artists share a profound faith in the possibilities of painting. While many contemporary positions rely on concept, analysis, or media strategies, Loy and Rauch affirm the power of the image itself. Their works demonstrate that painting remains an independent medium of insight and understanding in the 21st century.

Rosa Loy and Neo Rauch appear as two poles within a shared cosmos: on one side, a feminine, organic, transformative force; on the other, a historical, dreamlike, and mnemonic energy. Between them unfolds a space of resonance in which the paintings respond to one another. Their echo shapes one of the most fascinating visual worlds in contemporary art.

The exhibition presents more than 50 works by Rosa Loy and Neo Rauch, including several large-scale paintings, from the private PERLMUTT Collection. The selection offers a representative insight into two decades of the artists’ creative output and is being shown in this constellation in Germany for the first time.

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  Rosa Loy, Spinning top, 1999. Casein on canvas, 190 x 110 cm. Photo Uwe Walter, Berlin. © Rosa Loy VG Bild-Kunst. Courtesy Rosa Loy, Galerie Kleindienst Leipzig

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  Neo Rauch, Baptism, 2008. Oil on canvas, 50 x 30 cm. Photo Uwe Walter, Berlin. © Neo Rauch, VG Bild-Kunst. Courtesy Neo Rauch, Galerie Eigen+Art Leipzig

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  Rosa Loy, Visitors, 2013. Casein on canvas, 130 x 110 cm. Photo Uwe Walter, Berlin. © Rosa Loy VG Bild-Kunst. Courtesy Rosa Loy, Galerie Kleindienst Leipzig

Opening Hours and Admission:

Thursday to Sunday: 11:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.

Admission: €12.00, reduced €10.00

Groups of 10 or more €10.00 per person

Guided tours can be arranged by appointment for groups of up to 20 people for an additional fee plus reduced admission. Various educational programs are available for school classes. Special opening hours can be arranged for group visits.

Contact:

Barlach Kunstmuseum Wedel
Mühlenstraße 1
22880 Wedel, Germany

Phone: +49 (0)4103 918291
Email: kontakt@ernst-barlach.de

Website: www.ernst-barlach.de

Getting There:

The museum does not have its own parking facilities. Parking is available in the immediate vicinity. The museum can be reached via S-Bahn line S1 to Wedel station.

Supported by the District of Pinneberg and the City of Wedel.