Text and subtext in art

What Neo Rauch says about his paintings can apply to art in any medium -

Could you describe the moment when the idea for a picture turns into something definite?

It is a give-and-take between an idea, what one might call “text”, and what is recorded using the medium as “subtext”. I have to ask myself what I expect from painting: should it be subservient to my ideas or a queen that I have to serve? The text, which I regard as a private matter, must be able to stand being dragged diagonally across the canvas. If it loses something along the way, so much the better, since it then gains something that it may have urgently needed: sensuality and a truth that is rooted in non-verbal space.

Do you only give your works a title after they are finished?

Not if a word calls out for a picture. The child must be given a name. You won’t find an Untitled among my works—it is simply disrespectful to the picture, the viewer and, ultimately, to the gallery owner.

Are titles “honey traps” for viewers?

I have to ensure people linger in front of my pictures. Viewers must be rewarded—if people devote time to the picture then they must receive something in return.

Read more about his "socialist realist paintings" here - storytelling with an inscrutable twist - it's Rego-meets-Kitaj, from the perspective of someone who knows about many more UK painters than German ones... Rauch lives in Leipzig, was born in 1941, so his student years were in East Germany.