Markus Lüpertz 11 July – 14 September 1997 With 50 paintings, 6 sculptures and over 70 drawings, the Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung presented a retrospective of the artist’s work from 1964 to the present. The constantly flowing inspiration and the presence of mind of the artist in his epoch were impressively demonstrated. Even if painting seems to be increasingly oppressed by modern media, the work of Markus Lüpertz proves its unbroken ability to say something about the situation of man in his history, which under the surface of appearances makes the fundamental conflicts and contradictions visible and at the same time bridges them. Markus Lüpertz is one of the most important artists of his generation, having blazed new trails for both painting and sculpture since 1960. Under the motto “dithyrambic,” which he took from the poetry of Friedrich Nietzsche, he created a powerful pictorial world in Berlin that elevated everyday objects to archaic power and presence. When the spirit of optimism of the sixties had faded, he devoted himself to a new work phase of “style” painting, which responded to the self-referential, conceptual phase of the art of the seventies in intensive investigations of pictorial means. When painting was rediscovered by the younger generation around 1980 as a direct means of expressing self-exploration and a sense of time, Lüpertz turned to the tradition he found in Cubism with Poussin, Corot or in antique motifs. It was then that he created his first sculptures, which have continuously accompanied his work to this day. The last major period of his work since 1990 was devoted to the theme “Men without Women – Parsifal”. In surprising and expressive variations of men’s heads Lüpertz developed a strict new grammar of painting. More Less Exhibition Leaflet Past exhibitions of the Kunsthalle
