Press release
Arcadia, a place of earthly luck and easygoing life, is the scene of artist Markus Lüpertz‘s (born in 1941 in Liberec, Bohemia) new artwork cycle. The artist has captured a whole range of characters obtained from Greek and Roman mythology in varies media like canvas, paper and pressboard. Galerie Michael Werner is pleased to present an exhibition of these recently created works by Markus Lüpertz.
How do landscape, man and artifact stand today? This triad provides the basis of the works presented in Märkisch Wilmersdorf. Among an idyllic countryside, Iphigenia is posing nude. The beautiful Naussica appears elsewhere, the magician Circe emerges from the next work. Venus, goddess of love, and Diana, Roman goddess of the hunt and birth, are completing an arrangement of figurines whose bodies are modulated with conspicious brushstrokes and assume classical poses.
The figures always bear a relation to an object like a boat, a helmet, a suit of armor or snail shells. At times, this relationship refers directly to the mythological character, but sometimes it does not correspond with the traditional mythic iconography, instead citing themes like hardhats and shells which have been firmly established in the vocabulary of Markus Lüpertz for the past forty years. However inappropriate, this attribution is one strategy the artist uses to break from traditional concepts and imagery.
Since the 1980s, Lüpertz has dealt with Greek mythology both in form and theme in his painterly and sculptural oeuvre. The artist arouses expectations and immediately belies them by the aid of ornamental painting and misshapen bodies. Markus Lüpertz challenges traditions and rules. He asks us over and over again to question today’s beauty, ever attended by his credo: “Anyway – it doesn’t work without the figure.”
The exhibition opens at Galerie Michael Werner in Märkisch Wilmersdorf 28 October and remains on view through 20 December. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 10am to 5pm. Booking in advance is recommended by phone +49 (0)33731 32010 or email galeriewerner@michaelwerner.de.