Revisionen eines Schiffbruchs - Martin Kippenbergers Medusa

Martin Kippenberger (19531997) is considered one of the outstanding artists of the 1980s and 1990s. One of the artists greatest related bodies of work, Medusa, was produced one year before his death. In over 80 works he addresses Theodore Gricaults narrative painting The Raft of the Medusa (1819). In this critical, historical analysis the body of work is for the first time set within the context of the entire oeuvre, its evolution is extensively traced and Kippenberger's reception of Gricault's salon painting is examined in detail. Medusa illustrates much more complex dimensions than simply the metaphorization of the artists personal situation. Kippenberger translates Gricault's painting into the present day and in doing so reviews a shipwreck.