WHAT: Neo Rauch’s “Heilstätten”

WHEN: Through December 17, Tuesday-Saturday 10am-6pm, Monday by appointment

WHERE: David Zwirner Gallery, 525 West 19th Street, New York

WHY THIS SHOW MATTERS: The German artist creates a dark and seductive atmosphere at David Zwirner with his haunting dreamscapes in oil. Rauch’s surreal and abstracted content remains highly realist in technique with fine attention to figural detail. Yet the humanity of his subject’s pained and flushed expressions stand out amid the vast darkened skies or complex compositions.

The color spectrum is bleak but still rich. While his color palette consists of mostly earth tones the paintings are still incredibly bright, helped by the splashes of bright turquoise, electric orange, pollen yellow, and emerald green that seem to find their way onto the surface. Figures appear as if they’ve been cut and pasted into the frame; seeming to sit on the surface rather than integrated as native elements of the scenery. The architectural landscapes are often fragmented composites, acting as backdrops or providing partial narratives where viewers are left to fill in the rest.

Lastly, in addition to Rauch’s multi-paneled paintings, his sculpture “Die Jägerin” is also on view; a life-size bronze piece of a woman holding a bird. The press release suggests this might be a reference to the Goddess Athena, whose symbol is the owl — but it could just be an unearthly female of Rauch’s own creation, participating in an unknown ritual that requires her to fashion human heads to her chest. While the work is three-dimensional, rather than one of Rauch’s signature oils, it has the same disquieting quality as the figures on his canvases.

To see a selection from Neo Rauch's “Heilstätten," click here or on the slide show button above.