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Christoph Ruckhäberle and the Liepzig Gene |
Ulrich Museum of Art German artist Christoph Ruckhåberle makes large graphic paintings of stiff figures blithely staring at the viewer. Or he arranges indifferent half-clothed figures in a flattened room, working from a skewed perspective — looking down at his characters or up from above. The characters in his paintings share an anachronistic look, figures that recall the modern masters — Max Beckmann, Ernest Ludwig Kirchner, Henri Matisse, and Pablo Picasso. These artists are clear sources for Ruckhäberle, so much so that one might argue the artist ignored the past century of art-making, returned to an older tradition, and picked up where these artists left off. Yet it is precisely the art world of the past 100 years, the postmodern practice of wearing one’s influences on one’s sleeve, that enables these paintings to look fresh and new — wholly Ruckhäberle. The artist doesn’t have the weight of the modernist painting tradition bearing down on him; rather, he can pick and choose without the burden of one-upping his predecessors. He doesn’t have to “figure out” what painting can do — Ruckhäberle, not unlike the characters in his pictures, maintains a blasé stance. Part of the freedom of this stance might come from the recent popularity of contemporary German painting. Leipzig, where Ruckhäberle lives and works, in recent years has become a hotbed for the revival of figurative painting. This former East German college town of 500,000 has turned out a group of young painters known as the “New Leipzig School.” Artists such as Tilo Baumgärtel, Martin Kobe, David Schnell, Matthias Weischer, and Ruckhäberle, graduates of the revered Leipzig Academy of Arts (Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst) and former students of art star Neo Rauch, have collectively updated and re-imagined the possibilities of their academic training. Whereas Western art schools have largely turned away from painting traditions, looking instead to new media arts and installation, the academy in Leipzig requires seven years of studio-based courses. This new group of young post-Communist artists, while they technically approach painting in varying ways, largely focus on older traditions and especially quote the realist style mandated by the Communist regime. Ruckhäberle and his contemporaries examine the academic paradigm of nude models, the still life, rules of perspective, and formal compositions and mix it wildly with popular culture, cartoon figures, and a folk-art aesthetic. Ruckhäberle’s nonchalant look to the past is due in part to being far away from the New York art scene. As Ruckhäberle’s New York galleriest, Zach Feuer stated, “In Germany, it’s okay to make a traditional painting.” Yet, Ruckhäberle’s canvases are deceivingly traditional, as his tragic-comic bohemians often resemble cartoons or clumsy illustrations, influenced, no doubt, by his two years of animation study at the California Institute of Arts in Los Angeles. These figures are placed around a quaint dining room table or on a street corner, guitar in hand. Often, they are surrounded and encapsulated by patterns — brazen yellow zigzags, fire-red diamonds, and cool blue stripes abound. The action of the patterns pushes against the characters and the space of the canvas, defying any real sense of gravity. “I try to find an equilibrium where the image is just there, but also just about to fall apart,” Ruckhäberle explains. “A critical point that never really satisfies makes you nervous and keeps you looking.” In recent work, Ruckhäberle has taken these dramatic patterns and bold colors and added them to small brash paintings of face masks, recalling Oceanic and African art. Ruckhäberle paints these characters and scenes in a large airy studio in an old cotton factory in Leipzig. The abandoned cotton factory, the Spinnerei, was revived in 1992 into an enclave of artist studios, beautiful gallery spaces, and an outdoor café. Ruckhäberle has a rigorous work ethic, waking early each day to work on his large paintings and linocuts. This dedication has paid off as he has held solo exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, London, and Paris in just the past two years. Ruckhäberle, while looking to the past, is reinventing notions of figurative painting in the 21st century and pleasing himself along the way. “I like the English expression, ‘to whom it may concern,’” Ruckhäberle states. “I’m working ‘for whom it may concern,’ I don’t have to convince anybody.
Christoph Ruckhäberle, Tröte, 2007, Oil on canvas, 70.87 x 51.18". |
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Christophe Ruckhaberle, Untitled, 2005, Oil on canvas, 190 x 280 cm. |
Galleri Nicolai Wallner In Ruckhäberle's paintings, interior rooms set the stage for tall young men and women dressed in simple clothes. The dancing, standing, and sitting figures perform a variety of acts, often with blank stares or somber expressions. The characters, composed in classical poses, contrast with the relaxed rooms. These rooms act as theatrical backdrops where play is carried out with grim faces and animated gestures. Using neutral colors and his signature figure-groups, Ruckhäberle transforms public locations into centers for relaxation. Stages with no directors, the paintings become places where boredom and possibility coexist. In Ruckhäberle's most recent work, the viewer is able to look at his subject from a new angle – one seems to be watching the scene from under tables, on the ceilings, floating in mid-air. These odd viewing positions extenuate the contorting bodies of his subjects. Perspective is exaggerated and shrunken, legs are stretched, necks curve and everyone seems to be isolated from a game of Twister and placed alone on a stage. Christoph Ruckhäberle (b. 1972, Pfaffenhofen, Germany) is based in Leipzig. Ruckhäberle studied at the California Institute of the Arts from 1991-1992, and received his BFA in painting — in 1995 — and his MFA — in 2002 from Hochschule fur Grafik und Buchkunst in Leipzig. Ruckhäberle's work has been exhibited widely at venues including Mass MOCA, Cleveland Museum of Art, Ulrich Museum KS, Prague Biennial, Rubell Family Collection, the Saatchi Gallery, Aroyan Foundation, Seoul, South Korea and the Museum der bildenden Kunste, Germany.His work has also been shown in the 2nd Prague Biennale, the LIGA Gallery in Berlin and Marianne Boesky in New York. Ruckhäberle has exhibited at galleries including Arario Gallery in Korea, Nicolai Wallner in Copenhagen, Denmark and Ghislaine Hussenot in Paris, France. Ruckhäberle is represented by Sutton Lane in London and Paris, Nicolai Wallner in Copenhagen, Galerie Kleindienst in Leipzig and Zach Feuer Gallery in New York and Los Angeles. |
Christophe Ruckhaberle, Untitled (Porträt), 2005, Oil on canvas, 60 x 50 cm. |
Chrostophe Ruckhaberle, Santa Cruz, 2003, Oil on canvas, 190 x280 cm. |
