These Dithyrambic paintings were inspired by Lüpertz’s reading of Friedrich Nietzche’s Dionysian poetry. A dithyramb is an ancient Greek hymn sung and danced in honor of Dionysus, the god of wine and fertility. As an adjective dithyrambic has come to mean, “wildly enthusiastic”. Lüpertz’s works from this period give form to this never-ending intoxication — works he once described as “imposing construction on already existing objects”.
Video
Markus Lüpertz
Markus Lüpertz exhibited a new body of work entitled Pastoral Thoughts at the Michael Werner gallery in New York City. According to the brochure, these are ‘New works by the celebrated and controversial German artist [which] explore themes of history and abstraction in paintings derived from landscape motifs.’ The exhibition was labeled: ‘is the artist’s first major New York showing since 2005,’ and was accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue.