Markus Lüpertz: Hauptwege und Nebenwege Eine Retrospektive. Bilder und Skulpturen von 1963 bis 2009

by Lüpertz, Markus; Fleck, Robert; Darragon, Eric; Gohr, Siegfried; Hergott, Fabrice; Hofmann, Werner; Shiff, Richard

• ISBN13: 9783940953223
• ISBN10: 3940953229
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-10-09
• Publisher: Snoeck Publishing Company

Summary

Anti-abstract

Markus Lüpertz has never believed in the purely representational purpose of art, but, in his own words, has always been »searching for the potential picture« and thus doesn’t feel bound by any one style. Precisely for this reason, he has succeeded in freely creating works from a vast fund of artistic and historic-cultural material, devising coded paintings that bear his emphatic signature and which are themselves redolent of a mature and energetic freedom, which is in turn regarded by many a generation of artists as exemplary. In this way, younger artists, such as Peter Doig, Tal R, or Thomas Houseago, have been avid fans for some time now.

The exhibition, and the comprehensive accompanying catalogue, set out to investigate the »large gesture«, as well as to explore Lüpertz’s conscious play with the role of the artist, duly presenting his multifaceted oeuvre and his passion and intellectual rigour in a large selection of 150 paintings and sculptures, including a number of early works, which still have the capacity to surprise one today. They range from the early examples of the »dithyrambic«, »anti-abstract« painting from the 1960s, with their proximity to pop art, to the intensive engagement with the mythological and classical canon of themes during the past few decades, all of which is impressively accompanied by an extensive section containing photographic documents.

The retrospective exhibition held at the Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn builds on a successful series of exhibitions featuring leading German painters over the past twenty years, placing Lüpertz alongside artists such as Gerhard Richter, Sigmar Polke, and Georg Baselitz.

Exhibition:
Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn, 09/10/2009–17/01/2010

Author Biography

Markus Lüzertz, born 1941, is a German painter and sculptor and counts to one of the best-known German artists of the contemporary. From 1988 to 2009 he was principal of the art academy in Dusseldorf. He coined the name of this institution as Joseph Beuys had before. His work is affiliated with German Neo-expressionism but never could conceal its affection of the work of Pablo Picasso. Markus Lüpertz doesn’t want to hear this while he is indeed seeing the suggestive power and archaic monumentality of his own work, in which he always tries to connect the object of his depiction with an archetype, like a message of its existence. An architecture theme is unexpected in his work, but was present from the very beginning.

Robert Fleck, born 1957, is an art historian and curator; he is now professor at the academy in Dusseldorf for art history. His career started in 1991 until 1993, as Federal curator of Austria and continued as  journalist in France for the German monthly art. Before he became director of the Deichtorhallen Hamburg in 2004, he was 1998 co-curator of Manifesta together with Maria Lind and Barbara Vanderlinden. His successful exhibtions at Deichtorhallen—amongst others he was showing Michel Majerus, Jonathan Meese, Hans Haacke, Erwin Wurm, Georg Baselitz, Fischli & Weiss, and Stephan Balkenhol—lead him to the engagement as intendant of the Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepulik Deutschland in Bonn.