Skip to main content
Almine Rech

Markus Lüpertz Markus Lüpertz

Oct 13 — Nov 24, 2018 | Paris
Inquire about the exhibition: inquiries@alminerech.com

 Almine Rech Gallery is pleased to present the second solo exhibition by Markus Lüpertz with the gallery, including sculptures and paintings from 2008 to 2018. 

Markus Lüpertz came of age in postwar West Germany during the late 1950s, fascinated by cinema. He recalls that movies inspired the serial aspect of his work, his development of individual motifs in multiple variations. Lüpertz had a surprising insight: “Cinema was always painting an image several times simultaneously.” He referred to the slight differences we perceive, film frame to film frame, viewed in sequence—analogous to the material differences that appear between one of Lüpertz’s paintings and another of a closely related configuration. As in cinema, so in Lüpertz’s studio: “One painting leads to the next.” His many variations of a theme—such as pastoral scenes, figures in classical poses, or reveries on an artist’s palette—amount to more than the sum of the individual works in the series. They establish continuity, like a film, also like the painter’s own creative life. Yet each work, isolated in a frame, has its own affective and formal complexity. 

Lüpertz’s images combine cultural evocation with material invention. To a palette, he joins a skull and a helmet to form a still-life arrangement; these objects, thematically rich, interact not only as cultural references but as contours, shapes, and colors. In works of a similar spirit, Lüpertz might include a turtle, a serpent, an officer’s cap, a snail, a bird’s wing, or even a rowboat (as in Palette (Arcadien) Gold, 2018). The rowboat itself evokes the theme of Arcadian paradise, which links Lüpertz’s art to German predecessors of the nineteenth century, such as Hans von Marées, as well as to artists of the Renaissance and Baroque. His pastoral settings derive from his experience of the watery land around Märkisch Wilmersdorf, outside Berlin, where he maintains a studio. The Märkisch landscape, the artist’s present environment, links his pictorial fantasies of the past to his everyday existence. 

Interpretive narratives applied to Lüpertz’s art eventually fail, the victim of his sensory excess and thematic contradiction. He is an artist of powerful instinct, whose pictorial strategies defy the single-mindedness of our habitual critical constructions. Hyperactivity, both physical and mental, is his norm. His polychromed sculptures are as dynamically and evocatively composed as his paintings. More an artist of action than of contemplation, he is constantly reenergized by the multiple works at various stages of progress that populate his studios. 

With centuries of Western culture channeled into him, Lüpertz expresses this mass of information in new forms, suited to contemporary sensibility. “Painting is culture,” he says, “and who says culture says substance of the world. ... Without painting the world is only consumed, it is not perceived.” What, finally, do we perceive? “It is not a concept, it is a feeling.” Lüpertz demonstrates that, yes, painting and sculpture convey the wisdom of the ages, but first, they are arts of feeling. 

Richard Shiff

Press release

  • read or download in English
  • lire ou télécharger en Français

Selected artworks

  • Markus Lüpertz,                                      Arkadien (Amor und Psyche), 2018

    Markus Lüpertz Arkadien (Amor und Psyche), 2018

    Mixed media on canvas
    116 x 97 x 7 cm (framed)
    45 5/8 x 38 1/4 x 2 3/4 inches (framed)

  • Markus Lüpertz,                                      Arkadien (Clitunno), 2018

    Markus Lüpertz Arkadien (Clitunno), 2018

    Mixed media on canvas
    116 x 97 x 7 cm (framed)
    45 5/8 x 38 1/4 x 2 3/4 inches (framed)

  • Markus Lüpertz,                                      Arkadien (Quelle des Acheron), 2018

    Markus Lüpertz Arkadien (Quelle des Acheron), 2018

    Mixed media on canvas
    116 x 97 x 7 cm (framed)
    45 5/8 x 38 1/4 x 2 3/4 inches (framed)

  • Markus Lüpertz,                                      Arkadien (Libellen), 2018

    Markus Lüpertz Arkadien (Libellen), 2018

    Mixed media on canvas
    217 x 277 x 9 cm (framed)
    85 3/8 x 109 x 3 1/2 inches (framed)

  • Markus Lüpertz,                                      Tod des Fragonard, 2018

    Markus Lüpertz Tod des Fragonard, 2018

    Painted bronze
    76 x 185 x 102 cm
    29 7/8 x 72 7/8 x 40 1/8 inches
    Ed 1/6 + 1 AP

  • Markus Lüpertz,                                      Arkadien (Archeron), 2018

    Markus Lüpertz Arkadien (Archeron), 2018

    Mixed media on canvas
    217 x 267 x 9 cm (framed)
    85 3/8 x 105 1/8 x 3 1/2 inches (framed)

  • Markus Lüpertz,                                      Susanne (Märkisch), 2018

    Markus Lüpertz Susanne (Märkisch), 2018

    Mixed media on canvas
    219 x 263,5 x 7 cm (framed)
    86 1/4 x 103 3/4 x 2 3/4 inches (framed)

  • Markus Lüpertz,                                      Das Bad (Märkisch), 2018

    Markus Lüpertz Das Bad (Märkisch), 2018

    Mixed media on wood
    183 x 186,5 x 7 cm (framed)
    72 x 73 3/8 x 2 3/4 inches (framed)

  • Markus Lüpertz,                                      Palette (Arkadien) Altrosa, 2018

    Markus Lüpertz Palette (Arkadien) Altrosa, 2018

    Mixed media on canvas
    116 x 97 x 7 cm (framed)
    45 5/8 x 38 1/4 x 2 3/4 inches (framed)

  • Markus Lüpertz,                                      Fragonard (Skulptur), 2018

    Markus Lüpertz Fragonard (Skulptur), 2018

    Painted bronze
    227 x 88 x 90,5 cm
    89 3/8 x 34 5/8 x 35 5/8 inches
    Ed 1/6 + 1 AP

  • Markus Lüpertz,                                      Untitled, 2008

    Markus Lüpertz Untitled, 2008

    Oil on canvas
    178 x 149 x 7 cm (framed)
    70 1/8 x 58 5/8 x 2 3/4 inches (framed)

  • Markus Lüpertz,                                      Untitled, 2008

    Markus Lüpertz Untitled, 2008

    Oil on canvas
    150 x 150 cm
    59 x 59 inches

  • Markus Lüpertz,                                      Flora, 2018

    Markus Lüpertz Flora, 2018

    Painted bronze
    123 x 92 x 63 cm
    48 3/8 x 36 1/4 x 24 3/4 inches
    Ed 1/6 + 1 AP

  • Markus Lüpertz,                                      Fleur de Malle, 2018

    Markus Lüpertz Fleur de Malle, 2018

    Painted bronze
    124 x 80 x 73 cm
    48 7/8 x 31 1/2 x 28 3/4 inches
    Ed 1/6 + 1 AP

  • Markus Lüpertz,                                      Untitled, 2008

    Markus Lüpertz Untitled, 2008

    Oil on canvas
    209 x 149 x 7 cm (framed)
    82 1/4 x 58 5/8 x 2 3/4 inches (framed)

  • Markus Lüpertz,                                      Untitled, 2008

    Markus Lüpertz Untitled, 2008

    Oil on canvas
    209 x 149 x 7 cm (framed)
    82 1/4 x 58 5/8 x 2 3/4 inches (framed)