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Almine Rech

Maillol — Lüpertz A lineage

Nov 15, 2024 — Mar 23, 2025 | Musée Maillol, Paris, France

Maillol receives Lüpertz, or is it the other way round? From 15 November to 23 March, the Musée Maillol is presenting a new dialogue between the two artists in its permanent collections. The German master of neo-expressionism, known for dynamiting classical perfection, chose his fi liation, that of Maillol, who also, under an apparent easy harmony, hides many plastic audacities. 

The idea of bringing the work of Markus Lüpertz into resonance with the collection of the Musée Maillol provides an in-depth look at the German artist's output and was a sine qua non. Lüpertz is one of the great exponents of neo-expressionism, and a lover of form. The major retrospectives at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in 2015 and the Haus der Kunst in Munich in 2019 were not intended to place him within the narrative of art history, but rather to position him explicitly within contemporary art. Yet Lüpertz is more closely bound up with art history than any other artist of his generation. That's why, in 2022, the Musée d'Orléans decided to exhibit his work as an artist of the past.

In the same vein, but in a more intimate setting, Aristide Maillol is hosting Markus Lüpertz. A German artist, a 'painter-sculptor' as he calls himself, has chosen to follow in Maillol's footsteps - with him, and after him. Maillol, the bubbly one, whose works breathe plenitude, declining the brilliance of a living beauty, the presence of a harmonious and silent body, will be mixed with thirty large-format, small and large-scale canvases. 

This is the work of a modern-day artist who has never wanted to give up painting and sculpting, and who has never stopped questioning what we do with the past and what we can do with it because, in his view, there is no such thing as tradition on the one hand and creation on the other. It's a modern, anti-nostalgic response that is a joyous part of history.

— Danièle Cohn

Press release

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