Press release
Galerie Michael Werner, Märkisch Wilmersdorf is pleased to announce “Sculptural Experiments”, an exhibition of new plaster sculptures by Markus Lüpertz.
While primarily a painter Markus Lüpertz has also worked in sculpture for the past thirty years, with an approach that he describes as “extending surface into space.” His paintings and sculpture cover a similar choice of topics and motifs: Lüpertz modernizes mythological themes, cites and rewrites art historical topics, and develops self-gained inventions. In this aspect, the colored exterior that is typical of his sculptures owns an important role beside its often abstract and fragmented shape. It shows the sculpture’s state of mind and exposes it to its environment, a trait particularly noticeable in the case of the monumental sculptures like the Salzburg “Mozart” (2005) in Leipzig or the “Beethoven” (2013) in Bonn.
For his new sculptures, Markus Lüpertz has broken with this principle. Here, he finishes the surface of his sculpture with wax, which is either partially added to the sculpture or coated in entirety by way of submersion. The effect of this wax coat is that the mobility of the sculpture, originally resulting from its abstraction, is taken back. But this material also evokes a physical lightness as well as a statuesque statement. At the same time, light does not only throw shadows in the cracks of the forms – it casts reflections, giving the figures a deeply picturesque, unique charisma.
Markus Lüpertz was born in 1941 in Liberec, Bohemia, in the current Czech Republic. He studied at the Werkkunstschule Krefeld and at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, where he became professor in 1986 and served as director from 1988 until 2009. Important retrospective surveys of the artist’s work were recently presented at Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn (2009); Gemeentemuseum, The Hague (2011); Museo de Bellas Artes, Bilbao (2014), The Hermitage State Museum, St. Petersburg (2014), Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (2015) and China Art Museum, Shanghai (2016). A large retrospective at both the Phillips Collection and the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC will open in May 2017. Markus Lüpertz lives and works in Düsseldorf and Berlin.
The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue.
The exhibition opens at Galerie Michael Werner in Märkisch Wilmersdorf 13 March 2017 and remains on view through 28 April 2017. 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.