Ben Willikens (*1939 in Leipzig) has created an expansive ceiling painting measuring more than 460 square meters for the large, light-filled hall on the ground floor of the Leipzig Museum of Fine Arts: the Leipzig Firmament traces a personal arc from the early beginnings to the late works by the painter, who survived the bombing of his city of his birth in December 1943 and whose works have always been suffused with the events surrounding the firestorm he experienced as a child. Early memories can already be made out in Willikens formally reserved clinical interiors or unpeopled spaces. Based on the principle of the collage, the artist now assembles quotes from key works to form a visual encyclopedia of his entire oeuvre: a train station clock, for example, makes reference to his institution triptych (1972), and an abstract white skyscraper to the horizontal windows in the tribute to El Lissitzky's hygiene room (2000). Presentation: Leipzig Museum of Fine Arts, beginning 4.12.2014

Text by: Dieter Bartetzko, Walter Grasskamp, Richard Huttel, Hans-Werner Schmidt