I WANTED MY OWN HIERARCHY
by Birgit Maria Sturm
translated by Caroline von Falkenhausen
Michael Werner ranks among the most influential gallery owners in the world. Together with artists such as
Georg Baselitz,
Markus Lüpertz,
A.R. Penck and
Jörg Immendorff, he assisted in bringing international acclaim to new German art, which today is represented by great painting and high prices. But it was not always this way: in 1963 he caused outrage in his Berlin gallery on the Kurfürstendamm by exhibiting the famous Baselitz painting
Die große Nacht im Eimer (The Big Night Down the Drain), which depicts a boy masturbating.
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