Stop painting!

Jorg Immendorff, Solo, 1988, Oil on Canvas, 200 x 150cm

In Solo, Immendorff places himself not in a theatre but outside in a sprawling cityscape. The artist sits at his usual Café Deutschland table, now positioned throne-like upon a scene of a reunited Germany, which is suddenly thriving with everyday life.

Germany on Monday lost one of its most famous artists when Jörg Immendorff, 61, died at his home in Düsseldorf. He lost a long battle with the fatal neurodegenerative disorder known as Lou Gehrig's disease. The disease had progressed to such an extent in recent months that Immendorff could no longer move his arms and legs.

Jörg Immendorff (born June 14, 1945 in Bleckede near Lüneburg, died May 28, 2007 in Düsseldorf) was one of the best known contemporary German painters; he was also a sculptor, stage designer and art professor.
Since the 1970s, he worked closely with the painter A.R. Penck from Dresden (in East Germany). In his most recent work, a "painter monkey" often appeared, as an ironic commentary on the artist's business. He named one of his first acclaimed works "Hört auf zu malen!" ("Stop painting!")
Jorg Immendorff's most famous accomplishment is his Café Deutschland series, begun in 1977 and continued through the 1980's. His imaginary nightclub sits on the east-west border, an independent territory where the burlesque theatre of cold-war politics, national identity, and battle of artistic legacy is played out night after night in all its subterfuge and drama. This series of work takes its initial architecture from Renato Guttoso's Café Greco, but in painting after painting the ‘camera angle' shifts, the furniture is rearranged, and the action is captured in contorted perspective of the not-so-innocent bystander.
Spanning three decades of immense political change in his native Germany, Jorg Immendorff's work took a turn from the political to the personal in the late eighties. His many self-portraits depict a lonely creator, whose role as cultural antenna has been rendered suddenly obsolete.
On May 27, 2007, at age 61, he finally succombed to the disease he had so forcefully fought against for nearly a decade. His main reason for death was a sudden heart failure at the dawn of May 28.
more here and here (german)