Markus Lüpertz - Promenade

Galerie Suzanne Tarasieve is delighted to presented “Promenade,” an exhibition by Markus Lüpertz, as a prelude to the German artist’s retrospective opening at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in April 2015. “Promenade” features emblematic and historic works from the 1960s (the Dithyrambs) and the 1980s, as well as several more recent paintings and sculptures never previously exhibited. Born in 1941 in Liberec (then the Czech Republic, now Reichenberg, Germany), Markus Lüpertz is one of the main representatives of German Neo

Expressionism, alongside Georg Baselitz, Anselm Kiefer, Jörg Immendorff, Sigmar Polke, Gerhard Richter and A.R. Penck. Characterised by its figurative and often violently emotive style, and frequently provocative iconography, this artistic tendency developed in the late 1970s in reaction to conceptual and minimalist art. Abstract and geometrical, yet splattered with paint and closer to tribal art than the dematerialisation of the subject, Ohne Titel (Kongo - Korrektur des Konstruktivismus), one of the works in this show, perfectly exemplifies this approach. Markus Lüpertz takes his themes mainly from Greek mythology. The famous Dithyrambs, four of which are shown here, take their title from the hymns to Dionysus, whose passionate, even excessive spirit are mirrored in the vibrantly colourful, joyous and lively style of these highly expressive abstract paintings. In more recent works, such as Circe, Herkules, and Orpheus, the artist gives his mythological subjects a more classical dimension, in counterpoint, once again, to modernism. The Merkur sculptures also refer to Antiquity by their titles and the use of colour to underpin the volumes. The same is true of Kentaur, and of the untitled works that manifestly represent Hercules or Dionysus and his grapes . There is a strong physical resemblance between these mythological figures and the artist himself, who is clearly exploring the parallel between his own tumultuous and flamboyant existence and the lives of these ancient divinities. For Lüpertz, painting means permanent questioning. The mystery of art is permanent