Skulpturenpark Köln

Markus Lüpertz (b.1941 in Liberec, Bohemia), one of the most important figures in contemporary art in Germany, is a pioneer of the revival of figurative art there. His sculptural work since the beginning of the 1980s has always focused on the question of whether the Western concept of beauty can live up to its claim to universality. Lüpertz - in the context of his conception of the conflict between the Apollonian and Dionysian principles - frequently returns to subjects and figures from antiquity. He does not however reproduce the ideals of classical antiquity - as did the Renaissance - but exploits the simpler, cruder features of the Greek archaic.