Paintings and Sculptures from the 1980S

Galerie Lelong

______

Markus Lüpertz & A. R. Penck

Paintings and sculptures from the 1980s

3 April – 10 May 2014

Opening Thursday 3 April from 6pm

A.R. Penck, Zwei im Westen, 1985, Acrylic on canvas, 200 x 250 cm

Leading protagonists of what is known as “German Neo-Expressionism”, Lüpertz and Penck are painters and long-time friends. In the 1960s and 70s they looked to figuration as a reaction against the abstraction that dominated at the time. Lüpertz turned to a re-reading of history paintings and the great themes of mythology; Penck was inspired by graffiti, cave paintings and outsider art, developing a pictorial language made up of deliberately simple and universal signs (men, crosses, arrows). The exhibition brings together major paintings from the 1980s, symbols of a period when these two painters enjoyed an international renaissance which illustrated the resurgence of interest in German painting. In addition, there is a selection of painted bronzes by Lüpertz.

Markus Lüpertz was born in Bohemia in 1941. A student at the Düsseldorf Art Academy, he went on to be a teacher there in 1986 and then became its emblematic director. His work has been exhibited widely, at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in Düsseldorf, the Kunstmuseum in Bonn, the Museo Nacional Reina Sofia in Madrid, the Ludwig Museum in Cologne and the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague.

A.R. Penck, the pseudonym of Ralf Winkler, was born in Dresden in 1939. Rejected from a number of art schools in East Germany, he forged his own style alone, calling it "Standart". His situation as a non-conformist artist – he is also a musician – led him to move to the West in 1980. A retrospective of his work was organised in 2007 and 2008 at the Kunsthalle in Frankfort and Kiel in Germany, then at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris. Works from Lüpertz and Penck were included in the exhibition of the collection and works donated by Michael Werner in that same museum.

At the book shop from 3 April to 10 May : Monotypes by Kate Shepherd – Reds

Coming up: 15 May to 12 July : Sean Scully at the gallery, Ellsworth Kelly at the bookshop.

Contact:

13, rue de Téhéran 75008 Paris Tel. 33 1 45 63 13 19 http://www.galerie-lelong.com