Dynamic and whipping like the crack of a plastic ball on a table, the new exhibition “PING PONG” by Neon X Real symbolizes the creative exchange between the artists. Harald K. Schulze and Rolf Biebl are, first and foremost, passionate about provocation.

Formerly NEON REAL, today Neon X Real: The former trio is exhibiting together in Leipzig without Clemens Gröszer, who passed away in 2014. In 1981, the collective allied against the GDR art doctrine and decided to provoke. In their manifesto, they defiantly exclaimed “We don’t eat art fertilizer!” and at the same time invoked: “Embody your counterpart with the name NEON REAL”.

Deformed, out of place, drastic, the three artists placed people beyond idealization at the center of their attention – and shocked. Fleshiness, eroticism, bare physicality – the eye should linger on this. Against beautification and for a little more ugly truth.

In “PING PONG”, Neon X Real have also retained their bite and put people back in their imperfect, crooked frames. A loving act that can be painfully honest.

Harald K. Schulze shows in his colorful paintings outsiders of the night, whom he pulls from the margins of society into a surrealist spotlight. Rolf Biebl transforms human sculptures into carriers of emotions, which sometimes get out of balance or have already fallen out of the frame. In a psychoplastic manipulation, they oscillate between realism and expressionism and invite us to recognize ourselves. Both artists walk a tightrope between Kafkaesque tragedy and the mockery of the disappointed from behind: a bit coarse and critically rough, but with love for detail and for their figures.

Even though Clemens Gröszer is no longer physically present, he is always emotionally at the table. Together, the artists put their finger in the wound, raise their rackets to serve the ping-pong ball: Short, hard, crisp – right in the face, but with a slight wink. Because sometimes you just have to let it crack.

(By Sonja Gatterwe)