Lot 7. Artist's Resale Right "Droit de Suite". Neo Rauch b. Painted in Acquired from the above by the present owner circa Artist's Resale Right Regulations apply to this lot, the buyer agrees to pay us an amount equal to the resale royalty provided for in those Regulations, and we undertake to the buyer to pay such amount to the artist's collection agent.
Brought to you by. Alice de Martigny. Lot Essay Executed in , the vast panoramic canvas of Stellwerk , with its dynamic diagonal running right through its heart and splitting the painting in two, represents one of Rauch's greatest and most direct musings on the fall of the Berlin Wall. As one of the most important painters working today, Rauch's origins in Leipzig, East Germany and subsequent development after the fall of the Wall are legendary. His paintings speak about the unification of the two opposing principles which have driven the entire twentieth century world, Communism and Capitalism.
Having trained under the Communist regime in Socialist Realism and then been exposed to the pioneering artistic developments of the West, his painting are fused with a unique pictorial vocabulary, technical virtuosity and political gravitas.
The historical changes that were wrought around the globe over the past two decades can be encapsulated in one specific moment, the Fall of the Berlin Wall in November It is fascinating to look at Stellwerk , which was painted ten years after that cataclysmic event, from a contemporary perspective as we ourselves approach its twentieth anniversary.
With this pivotal step in the downfall of Socialism in Europe and the end of the Cold War and its contingent tension, West and East collided after decades of separation and segregation, and nowhere was this more turbulently the case than in the formerly divided Germany. The removal of the surveillance state brought new freedoms: a change in the media to which people had access, a change in the music to which people could listen, a change in the freedom to travel and a change in art.
