Markus Lüpertz: Der große Löffel (The Large Spoon) (© Markus Lüpertz / The Phillips Collection)
The Phillips Collection will feature an exhibition celebrating the work of artist Markus Lüpertz, one of Germany’s most prominent living artists.
The Phillips Collection’s “Markus Lüpertz” is curated by Director Dorothy Kosinski and will trace the entirety of the artist’s five-decade career from the 1960s through the present. Organized in close collaboration with the artist and his long-time gallerist Michael Werner, the exhibition was first inspired by a generous gift in 2015 of artworks from Werner’s personal collection.
Markus Lüpertz, who began painting in a postwar Germany dominated by American Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art, has exhibited a preoccupation with the relationship between figuration and abstraction over the course of his career. Demonstrating this relationship through nearly 50 paintings, the exhibition at the Phillips includes important examples from Lüpertz’s “dithyrambic” pictures and provocative paintings of German motifs.
“Throughout his remarkable career, Markus Lüpertz has insistently challenged and provoked art historical givens and the norms of modernism,” said Phillips Director Dorothy Kosinski. “Painting is a life ethos for him in which he grapples with fundamental issues of art and living, enabling us to see and understand our world.”
This marks the first formal collaboration between the Hirshhorn and the Phillips. A joint catalog will offer new scholarship on Lüpertz’s development, with contributions by both curators and other authors.
This event is part of the European Month of Culture (EUMC). Now in its fifth year, EUMC is a month-long festival of innovative and creative events for the American public highlighting the diverse cultures of all 28 European Union Member countries. Enjoy film, dance, music, theatre, exhibits, language classes, workshops and more in great venues throughout Washington DC. Most events are free! To see all EUMC events, click here.
