East German expressionism

"Leipzig has long been a holy place of figurative art, a fortress against abstract art," says Berlin critic Tom Mustroph.

Aris Kalaizis, a strikingly original figurative painter who was born in Leipzig, where he studied and lives, recalls, "When I began to study painting in the early 1990s, it was considered strange. No one was interested in painting." Classmates derided the representational painters as boringly retro. For those who stuck to their guns, eschewing video and photo-based art, then the rage, they were so "derrière-garde," they became avant-garde.

The Academy inculcated a strict work ethic, and these painters still plug away in their studios every day. Even with such discipline, demand for their work far outstrips production. Neo Rauch completes 20 paintings a year, according to his charismatic Leipzig dealer Gerd Harry Lybke, founder of the Leipzig gallery EIGEN+ART. "I have 40 museums," Mr. Lybke says, "and 600-700 people who want to buy a Rauch painting." (A Rauch painting sold for a record price of $844,444 at Sotheby's in 2006.)

Opinion is divided as to whether the painters should be considered a school.

The group "definitely has an aesthetic that's consistent," says the artist/dealer Joe Amrhein, who opened a branch of his alternative Brooklyn gallery, Pierogi, in Leipzig because he was so smitten by the "do-it-yourself, anything-is-possible atmosphere" there.

Jeffrey Grove, contemporary art curator at Atlanta's High Museum, who curated the Cleveland show, says, "Absolutely they think of themselves as a group." He points out a commonality: "They obviously come from a figurative tradition, which they've reinvigorated."

There's wide agreement on why Leipzig art is so sought after: virtuosic painting.

"People have returned to beauty," says Zach Miner, contemporary art expert at Christie's. He admits the Leipzig painters' vision is "not warm and fuzzy," but he's convinced that "people turn to aesthetics to deal with a world that's become destabilized."

The paintings from Leipzig, a city where the old certainties and sense of purpose were ripped away, vibrate with absence, dislocation, and a psychological state of anomie. They imply weird narratives – undecipherable as a David Lynch film – fraught with ambiguity.

Rauch's paintings suggest "living in a failed utopia," says Charles Haxthausen, professor of art history at Williams College in Williamstown, Mass. An enigmatic Rauch image "is not about a message. It's about a feeling."

This feeling comes through in Weischer's empty rooms – the walls scarred with layers of history, and Eitel's almost photo-realist watercolors, where people fail to make eye contact and seem existentially alone.

"They're asking quite interesting societal questions, trying for a largeness of vision," says Gregory Volk, associate professor of art at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond.

He admits to being skeptical of the hype surrounding this latest art-world craze, yet he concludes, "There might be a speculative bubble in their prices, but this is not a scam. These are serious young artists developing their voices and their own approaches in painting."

Like modern Rumpelstiltskins, artists who work and exhibit in the old cotton-spinning mill are spinning threads of linen canvas into gold.

• Paintings from the Rubell Collection will be at Seattle's Frye Art Museum Feb. 17 to June 3, 2007, and at the Salt Lake Art Center, June 23 to Sept. 29, 2007.

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