Markus Lüpertz

Born in Liberec, Czech Republic 1941 | Lives and works in Düsseldorf, Germany

 

Lüpertz's sculpture is an astonishing reinvention of figurative sculpture, even more crucially, the consummate statement of the modernist vision of the figure: the figure as body ego - the first ego, as Freud said, that is, the most primitive and organic and physical ego. This raw figure challenges and undoes the idealist vision of the figure as sublime or transcendental form, which has dominated Western art since antiquity.

–Donald Kuspit, preeminent American art critic, scholar, and professor

 

Markus Lüpertz is considered one of the most important German artists of the 20th century. Known as a painter, sculptor, writer, and professor, Lüpertz's artistic practice spans over half a century. Starting out in a postwar German art scene dominated by Pop Art and Abstract Expressionism, he soon found his own form of artistic expression, returning to figuration with the series of dithyrambic paintings. Throughout his career as a painter and sculptor, Lüpertz has created a dialogue between sculpture and painting as well as abstraction and figuration, constantly questioning art and the role of the artist.

 

Lüpertz's works are represented in several prestigious collections in Europe and the US. He has exhibited worldwide in galleries, museums, and institutions, as well as taken part in the First Berlin Biennale in 1974 and in several editions of Documenta in Kassel. He has held professorships in such renowned institutions as at the Staatlichen Akademie der Bildenen Kunst in Karlsruhe, and Staatlichen Kunstakademie in Dusseldorf. Lüpertz was awarded the German Critic's Association Prize in 1971.