Markus Lüpertz was born in the middle of the war in Reichenberg, in April 1941, which has been part of the recovered Czechoslovakia under the name Liberec since May 1945, and the Lüpertz family then fled to the Rhineland in 1948.
After this shock in the early youth, Lüpertz was hesitant, but soon all the more sustainable: after he was released from an apprenticeship as a painter of bottle labels due to “lack of talent” and the second apprenticeship failed in the bankruptcy in a commercial graphic artist, he preferred to decide on an academic career.
The absolute reference to the craftsmanship of art made: Lüpertz had chosen the Krefeld Werkkunstschule as a training center, here he received lessons that included all facets of the performing art.
During his studies (1956 to 1961), he also worked during the construction, according to his own statement, experienced a “fanatic religious time” during a course of study in the Maria Laach monastery and spent a semester at the Düsseldorf Art Academy.
Lüpertz creates his professors during the short academy. The artist himself later described the attendance of the academy as a “huge fiasco”, from 1961 he therefore tried to be a freelance artist in Düsseldorf . Maybe the success did not come quickly enough, maybe the adventure called: Lüpertz opened to France with friends, where he wanted to hire on a ship.
Since none of them drove and he had no money, he committed himself to the French Foreign Legion instead. Then he noticed that basic training could lead to a war deployment there when he was supposed to be commanded to Algeria, he deserted.
Now Lüpertz moved to West Berlin , which saved him another military service in the home country, but here he was also able to steer his picturesque career in more successful. In 1964 he founded one of the first of the so -called producer galleries, a gallery led by the artists himself, named after the address "Großgörschen 35" together with 15 students of the Arnste Berlin (Jürgen Burggaller, Peter Horst Hödicke, Peter Sorge and Arnulf Spengler).
Lüpertz was now able to record the first success: in 1969 the director of the Baden-Badener Kunsthalle introduced him to him in a talent show, in 1970 he received the Villa Romana Prize, which was connected in Florence with one year, Lüpertz organized the 1st Biennale Berlin .
The political life of Berlin, the 68 movement, remained rather strange to him, after his move he should describe his point of view in a poem as follows: “The dark Berlin determined my life-the cold nights and unheated studios-the big street, the corner pub, the faithlessness” about his goal: “And Karlsruhe attracted me, the thirty-year-old-and the city and the possibilities snapped at- I warmed me with southern charm - and idyllic places "
That was after Lüpertz had accepted a professorship for painting at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe , but Baden Comfort should help him to fame:
Until 1986 he was a professor in Karlsruhe and then moved to the Düsseldorf Art Academy , whose rector he was appointed in 1988. There he was able to go through a long term, over 20 years he led them to the most important German academies. Here most of the documenta participants , here Lüpertz came up with artists such as Jörg Immendorff, Jannis Kounellis, Rosemarie Trockel , Ar Penck, Tal R, Jeff Wall , Albert Oehlen, Georg Herold, Albert Oehlen, Tony Cragg and Peter Doigg.
In the discussion about university reforms, Lüpertz always remembered his origin from a work art school.
by Axel Mauruszat, via Wikimedia Commons
Today Lüpertz lives and works in Karlsruhe and Düsseldorf, Teltow near Berlin and Florence. The prices for his pictures can only be learned on request, screen prints are sold for four -digit sums, tiny sculptures of him hit some small cars in the price, you could say that he is doing really well.
Perhaps the works that Lüpertz created as a painter, graphic artist and sculptor are really as extraordinary as they are perceived by many of the artists' followers. Perhaps the smooth course of his career also has to do with the fact that Markus Lüpertz is not to be expected to be the most modest artists of our time.
If it is right that it is rightly observed the most that makes the loudest talk, Markus Lüpertz is undisputedly gifted. Already in his early days there were sayings such as "there is no way around, there is no remedy against me." (1973) to hear from him, also sentences such as "The artist is the best, most beautiful and greatest thing that society has" often go through the lips of "genius", as he likes to classify himself, and above all he means himself.
However, today, wherever you are flooded by companies and people who say greatly, also learned that the highest quality does not necessarily have to be hidden behind the self -expression of the loudest.
Lüpertz's works also have many critics who, for example, accommodate him a “motivic Tourette syndrome” and have also described him as “clever self-portrayal, modestian and photo gate, master of the Schlenker and director of sloppiness”.
It is only a good thing that criticism is not so much interested in Lüpertz anyway - as he already asked his students as “submission and admiration”, he is also completely indifferent to him what others think about him.
