I HEAR THAT HE SINGS, TOO | November 8th 2007

Detail from "Train Tracks", Bob Dylan 2007, Black Buffalo Collection

A German art gallery in the town of Chemnitz mounts the first-ever exhibition of water-colour and gouache paintings by Bob Dylan. Cornelia Rudat throws the bums a dime, and goes to take a look ...

Chemnitz, of all places!

This little-known Saxon city, called Karl-Marx-Stadt in the communist era, has a miserable image as a poor, dilapidated, rustbelt town. Its population has shrunk from 330,000 to 240,000 since German unification. But in the arts world its fame is spreading. The beautiful König Albert Museum houses the Chemnitz City Art Gallery, where Ingrid Mössinger, its clever director since 1996, has been very busy.

Since her arrival the gallery has had remarkable exhibitions of work by Pablo Picasso, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Edvard Munch and Henri Toulouse-Lautrec. The permanent collection includes 65,000 works of 20th-century art, including a large collection of paintings by Chemnitz-born Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, one of the founding members of the famous Brücke group, in 1905, which marked the beginning of German expressionism.

Last year Mössinger came across Bob Dylan's 1965 album, "Bringing it All Back Home" (her first and—still—only Dylan album). She was touched, especially by the first song, "Subterranean Homesick Blues". "Someone who uses such metaphoric and abstract language might also be drawing", she explained to me. She searched for evidence in several Dylan biographies and was not at all surprised when she discovered "Drawn Blank", a book published by Random House in 1994, with 92 drawings and sketches Dylan made while on tour between 1989 and 1992. She finally got hold of a copy at the Morgan Library in New York.

Persuaded of Dylan's talent as a draftsman, Mössinger wanted him to "eventually complete" his sketches—something he had indicated a desire to do in his book's preface. It took her a while to get hold of him, but once she did, she received a positive reply within two days. Dylan was inspired by her commitment. "I was fascinated to learn of Ingrid's interest in my work, and it gave me the impetus to realise the vision I had for these drawings many years ago. If not for this interest, I don't know if I even would have revisited them", the singer is quoted as saying in the museum's literature. Over eight months Dylan elaborated on his 322 works.

With the help of digital fine-art print, he enlarged 85 drawings and printed them on deckle-edged paper. He produced three or four variations of a single motif by adding water colours or gouache and sometimes repainted one or two details. Mössinger chose 140 paintings (all titled and signed by the artist) for her show and 170 for the catalogue, available in German and English.

The exhibition's audio guide is available in German only. But even without a guide, the real Dylan fan is going to find songs (or lines from them) visualised in this or that painting. Take a long look at "Woman in Red Lion Pub", for instance, probably the show's highlight, and songs including "Visions of Johanna" and "Just Like a Woman" from "Blonde on Blonde" (1966) are bound to cross your mind. Or did Dylan think of "Sara" (from "Desire", 1976) when he painted this erotic woman?

Art critics have been quick to see the influence of German expressionists, especially Kirchner and Max Beckmann, in the bright colours and the bold, dark contours. Three variations of "Corner Flat" depict three different men of different ages in the same environment. They all look sad and introverted, and they don't seem to notice what's going on outside the (hotel?) room. Are they a metaphor for Dylan's "lonesome hobo" on "John Wesley Harding" (1967)?

The exhibition ends with three variations of "Train Tracks" (pictured at the top of this page), whichtrail away to the horizon, like the trains and journeys running through so many ofDylan's lyrics.

Overall, Dylan's portraits and nudes seem clear and calm, but his interiors and landscapes often radiate a certain chaos and restlessness. He's got the measure of other people, it's the universe that worries him. That fits with the musician whose most evocative lyric is still probably this one:

"How does it feel
To be without a home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?"

("The Drawn Blank Series" until March 24th 2008 at Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz, Theaterplatz 1, 09111 Chemnitz. Tel.: +49-371-488 44 24.)