In East Germany, all the cool kids read Mosaik, an extremely popular comic book. One of these cool kids was artist Neo Rauch, who grew up there in the 1970s to 80s. He lived vicariously through the three protagonists who travelled the world and had (mis)adventures. “It was like they were travelling for us, since we couldn’t do it,” says Rauch, sitting in his airy Leipzig studio. “It showed the world to those trapped behind the wall.”
The German painter’s studio is in a building in a former industrial area in Leipzig, where an old cotton mill was turned into a complex housing many studios and warehouses. His wife and fellow artist Rosa Loy has her own studio right next door. The couple welcomed to Rauch’s studio, where a punch bag hangs in one corner, and scattered across the paint-splattered floors are trinkets and gifts from travels and friends, and a couple of unframed canvases: two works that will be on view at, the artist’s current show at David Zwirner Hong Kong; the remainder had been dispatched to
