Kongo. 1981.
Oil on canvas.
163 x 201 cm (64.1 x 79.1 in).


• The year this work was made, Lüpertz also initiated the series of the same name, which includes this large-format painting.
• The following year, the artist was represented at documenta 7 in Kassel.
• In the early 1980s, Lüpertz's works featured in significant shows such as “A New Spirit of Painting” at the Royal Academy of Arts in London and “Zeitgeist” at the Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin.
The painting reveals a key principle of Lüpertz's painting: the interplay between object and form, between subject and abstraction, and a compositional balance of forms and color.

PROVENANCE: Galerie Michael Werner, Cologne (with the gallery label on the stretcher).
Achenbach Art Consulting, Düsseldorf.
European private collection (acquired from the above).
Acquired by the current owner from the above.

EXHIBITION: Kölner Herbstsalon, Josef-Haubrich-Kunsthalle, Cologne, August 12 - 29, 1982, p. 15 (illu.).

"Through the abstraction of my consciousness, I sought to create representational equivalents, that is, an abstract representational concept."
Markus Lüpertz in an interview with Peter Schwerfel, 1989, Cologne.