Interior III

"Interior III" depicts the artist’s studio with finished canvases in stacks. Markus Lüpertz represented the studio not as a place of active painting but as a symbol of the artist’s identity and relationship to art history. The most prominent canvas displayed presents an army coat and an oversized cap worn by an invisible occupant. For a German audience, such an image evokes memories of and questions about the army’s role in World War II (1939–1945) and the Holocaust. The empty shell of the uniform suggests the frightening anonymity of evil. Here, the artist confronts the viewer with the issue of collective responsibility while trying to define his own position in connection with the past.