Kippenberger Meets Picasso

Martin Kippenberger (Dortmund, Germany, 1953 – Vienna, Austria, 1997) belongs to a generation of German artists who were devoted to exploring the role played in culture by the artist. Kippenberger died prematurely, and it is only recently that his work has gained worldwide recognition. The exhibition at the Museo Picasso Málaga is one of the most important to be devoted to the German artist’s work in Spain, where he lived in the late-1980s. It was, precisely, whilst a resident of Carmona, in Seville province, in 1988, that Kippenberger became fascinated by the life and work of Pablo Picasso. This deep interest led him to paint the series Untitled (1988), from which selected works will be included in the show at the MPM.

Kippenberger became interested in the photographs that David Douglas Duncan took of Picasso in the 1960s. He was struck particularly by several portraits that Duncan made of Picasso’s wife Jacqueline Roque after the artist’s death in 1973. These portraits inspired Kippenberger to produce a series of oil paintings entitled Jacqueline: The Paintings Pablo Couldn’t Paint Anymore (1996), several of which are featured in the exhibition.

“Kippenberger Meets Picasso”explores themes that both artists shared in common, such as loss, reflection on personal experience in art and the portrait as a genre. Besides illustrating these themes, the exhibition also includes a selection of works from Kippenberger’s series The Raft of the Medusa (1996), in which the German artist takes the concept of the self-portrait as tragic representation of one’s own life to extremes.

Curator: Eva Meyer-Hermann. After working as chief curator at the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, Eva Meyer-Hermann has built up a career as an independent curator.

Number of works: Around 50 works, including large paintings, drawings and sculptures, as well as a selection of over 60 artist’s books and catalogues and more than 36 posters designed by the artist over the course of his career.

Kippenberger Meets Picasso
Martin Kippenberger, Pablo Picasso
Kurator: Eva Meyer-Hermann