Markus Lüpertz

Markus Lüpertz was born in Liberec (Bohemia) in 1941, but he and his family moved to Germany when he was still very young. After studying Fine Art in Krefeld and Düsseldorf, in 1961 he went to live in Berlin. In 1966 he published his “Dithyrambisches Manifest” (Dithyrambic Manifesto), and he also applied the term “dithyrambic” to his paintings, in an attempt to define an exalted celebration of the fusion of man with nature through song, dance and intoxication. The seventies brought a turning-point in his artistic exploration; a greater structural organisation appeared in his composition, a search for a balance between a formal structure that came from abstraction and figurative interpretation. In the eighties he began to experiment with volume and produced his first sculptures. In both sculpture and painting he returned to the human figure, with a range of influences that included Greek classicism, African art, Cubism and Surrealism. His work, like that of Baselitz, Immendorff and Kiefer, belongs to German Neo-Expressionism, which in the early sixties embarked on a consistent breakaway strategy, rejecting prevailing American trends in order to bring out so-called “Germanic” characteristics. In his work there is a mixture of dialogue and the past, the Greek myths, a deep religious feeling and a love of poetry and literature. This exhibition presents a total of 180 works: 40 sculptures, 60 paintings and 80 drawings, which provide a survey of over twenty years of his artistic output, from 1980 to the present day.