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| Die Mädchen von Olmo II (The Girls from Olmo II) 1981 |
Fresh out of the Retrospective of works by Georg Baselitz (born 1938), I am feeling exhilarated. It is the kind of exhibition where you may have to take your courage in both hands to enter - but once you are inside you are bowled over! It is most satisfying to see how an artist progresses- in this case over 60 years- rather than seeing one work in a museum and thinking "What's all this about?"
Georg Baselitz (the name he took from his native village in Saxony- real name: Hans-Georg Bruno Kern) is a marvelous plastician. The paintings have a size and depth which no book image can convey. The sculptures are powerful, primitive.
The vivid colours of the above painting, inspired by the sight of Italian girls bicycling on a square, are reminiscent of the bright colours used by the 'Die Brucke' movement of German expressionists. Baselitz, well-researched and well-read, has taken into account all the art movements of his time. His figures are simplified, chunky, as were his sculptures of the same period. One caused a scandal, at the Venice Biennale of 1980:
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| Modell für eine Skulptur (Model for a Sculpture) 1979-80 |
This is the sculpture that made the artist famous internationally, because of the uproar that it caused. Baselitz was inspired by African (Lobi, from the Ivory Coast) sculptures. He had started an African collection in the 70s which is now one of the largest in the world, in similar vein to Picasso and other early 20th century artists. The figure appears 'imprisoned' in the log.
Unfortunately (or accidentally on purpose?), the wooden log-like figure was daubed with the colours of the German flag- red and black against the yellow-tinged lime wood- and the gesture was taken as being the Heil Hitler salute ! (banned in modern Germany). Baselitz protested, but it made him famous.
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Same sculpture as above from a different angle
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Georg Baselitz in his studio in Derneburg in 1982 (photo copyright Balthasar Burkhard)
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Baselitz caused scandals in the art world from the start, whether it was from the over-sized sexual attributes he painted on his figures as a young man, or from another early portrait of a man which was said to resemble the Führer...or both!:
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Die Grosse Nacht im Eimer (The great night ruined) 1962-63
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His explanation for the above was a reference to a lecture by Irish poet and playwright Brendan Behan, where Behan threatened to perform the same gesture. The 1963 exhibition of this work in West Berlin, where Baselitz had moved to as a student, led to a court case for obscenity.
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| G-Kopf (G Head) 1961 |
Baselitz's self portrait above is similar to some of the works of patients from asylums shown at the "Degenerative Art" Exhibition by the Hitler régime in 1937, especially to humiliate the avant garde artists displayed alongside.
Baselitz's early works are brutal, angry. They reflect a feeling of alienation and the difficulty of being an artist in post-war Germany. His figures at this stage are hopeless puppets, distorted or amputated. Underlying is the pain of the bombing of Dresden (over 35,000 civilians perished) or the revelation of the concentration camps.
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| G. Antonin 1962 |
The title of the work refers to Antonin Artaud, author associated with the theatre of cruelty. Artaud, in his book 'Le Pèse-nerfs' (The wearing of the nerves) of 1927 describes his existential malaise.
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| Ralf III, 1965 |
Ralf Winkler was Baselitz's friend and fellow artist, who chose to stay in the East and consequently was largely undiscovered until the 1980s. The name Winkler adopted as an artist was A.R. Penck (1939-2017). Baselitz's distortion of his subject was inspired by works in the degenerate exhibition, but also by his observation of Mannerist artists while on a study grant to Florence.
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| A later Georg Baselitz in front of a version of 'Oberon', a hallucinatory selfportrait , 1963-4 |
Baselitz had started his artistic studies in Dresden, East Germany, where he was criticised for painting too much like Picasso (considered 'degenerate' by the régime). He was later expelled from the school for his 'lack of socio-cultural maturity'. In 1957, aged 19, his resident permit having been taken away from him, he moved to West Berlin. Having rejected the Socialist- Realist style ordered by the régime in the East, he also rejected the abstraction proned by the avant garde in the West. His compromise was to be figurative but turn his figures upside down! This became his 'trade mark'.
Before he inverted his subjects, Baselitz had a period in the mid 60s where he painted huge figures: poets, wounded soldiers or partisans striding through a land destroyed by war:
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| Die Grossen Freunde (The big friends) 1965 |
This large painting of friends symbolises the disconnection of Germany 5 years after the building of the wall in 1961. The heads are small, in 'Mannerist' style. The land is desolate. There is a red flag lying torn on the ground which is littered with debris. The two 'Heroes', as the series became known, are unable even to hold hands. The setting is inspired by a lithography of le Douanier Rousseau: 'La Guerre' (War). It may be an image of Baselitz and his wife Elke, whom he married in his student days and to whom he is still married.
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Drei Streifen-Der Maler im Mantel (Three strips- The painter in a coat) 1966
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Baselitz went on to paint disjointed figures, reminiscent of the 'cadavres exquis' (exquisite corpses) invented by surrealists in Paris in the twenties, where 3 different people drew the images without knowing what was above. Baselitz's large-scale figure has as its 'trunk' literally a tree trunk!
Baselitz expresses his own dislocation, or the dislocation of his world. Trees are seen to drip blood:
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| Der Baum (The Tree) 1966 |
This tree was a recurring motif of Baselitz's, first encountered in a reproduction in his school assembly hall of a 19th century scene by Saxon painter Von Rayski. The original is to be found in the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature (Hunting and Nature Museum) in Paris:
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| Jagdpause im Wermsdorfer Wald (Pause during a Hunt in the Wermsdorf Woods) 1859 by Louis-Ferdinand von Rayski |
Trees and birds provided constant pictorial inspiration for Baselitz, who, as a boy, helped a nature photographer take pictures of birds. The birds are upside down since 1969, synthesising the figurative and abstract:
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| Der Falke (The Falcon) 1971 |
This work has been lent to the Exhibition by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Baselitz gives depth to his painting of the falcon: the window frame on the left and bottom 'pushes it back'. It is turned into a seemingly abstract painting by the inversion.
Another recurring bird picture is his "Eagle", which could be a reference to the German symbol - or not:
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| Fingermalerei- Adler (Finger painting- eagle) 1972 |
Any ferociousness on the part of the eagle is taken away by the reversal, while the finger painting adds poetry to the image, which appears at first abstract.
Baselitz's industrial landscapes have a light, 'Japanese' quality:
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| Fertigbetonwerk (Prefabricated concrete factory) 1970 |
The grey landscape is enhanced by touches of green and brown, while the lines are sketchy. We are used to seeing reflections, so the effect is less disturbing perhaps than seeing a person reversed.
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| Dreieck zwischen Arm und Rumpf (Triangle between Arm and Torso) 1973 |
In this realistic selfportrait, Baselitz, aged 35, creates what looks like a bird wing between his arm and torso. He uses finger painting and charcoal to enhance the light oil paint and we have the impression that he is soaring in the air. In this work and previous portraits, he used photographs to help him, but the works are painted upside down (he didn't simply invert them once they were done!)
Some of his works have a certain nostalgia. His father, who had fought in the Nazi army, then was imprisoned for a short time by the new Socialist regime, and finally restricted in his movements during the cold war period, looks through the window at a tree:
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| Mein Vater blickt aus dem Fenster 1 (My Father looking out of the Window 1) 1981 |
Baselitz was inspired by the works of Edvard Munch. The figure of his father is simplified almost to a caricature. He painted many variations of this theme, in contrasting colours. His figures are also reminiscent of Jean Dubuffet (1901- 1985), who developed a primitive, child-like style which impressed Baselitz.
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| Orangenesser (Orange eater) (KON-GO KON-GO) 1981 |
This striking lino cut is one of the many works in the exhibition which is in private hands. The model was himself, Baselitz, shown joyful, clown-like.
Some of his most sought after paintings date from the period he calls "Remixes", where Baselitz revisits works by artists he admires or by himself.
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| Pauls Hund (Remix) Paul's dog (Remix) 2008 |
Inspired by the Van Gogh painting of Paul Gauguin's chair in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, Baselitz had painted his own version in 1988. Here is his 'Remix', which incorporates in the lines of the chair a swastika, ancient emblem of peace, twisted by the Nazi party. Baselitz also includes a reference to his fellow-German artist Martin Kippenberger, who created a famous work in 1984 "With the best will in the world, I cannot see a swastika"
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| Elkeporträt (Portrait of Elke) 2010 |
The reworking of a 1969 portrait of his wife Elke becomes fluid. The oil paint is used like watercolour. The effect is confused, blurred. Elke (inverted of course) appears in the depths of the painting as if in a negative.
Some of Baselitz's huge sculptures possess a dull black patina, as if they are made of charred wood:
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| Winterschlaf (Hibernation) 2014 bronze |
According to Baselitz himself, this sculpture reminded him of Joseph Beuy's sculpture "Schneefell" (Snowfall) or of Caspar David Friedrich's Das Eismeer (The Sea of Ice). Baselitz's sculptural style is distinctive. The moulds for the bronze are hacked directly from the tree trunks.
His latest works are extraordinary. Working with his huge canvases on the floor, like Jackson Pollock, rather than painting upright, Baselitz occasionally leaves footprints on his paintings (a little difficult to make out on the photo, but situated in the white area bottom right!)
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| Bildneunundzwanzig (Painting 29) 1994 |
The portraits of his wife Elke and himself have an ethereal quality, sometimes surrounded by an aura. Baselitz used patterns to apply the figures to the background.
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| Ach, rosa, ach rosa (Ah, rose, ah rose) 2015 |
Baselitz's inverted figures become less distinct and take on an abstract, astral quality:
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| Schatten ist nicht drin (Inside there is no shadow) 2019 |
(Oil and gold varnish on canvas)
Is the figure in front of or behind the gold? Baselitz reconciles the dilemma of figuration or abstraction in his latest works in a most original and individual way.
Provocateur, disturbing, but a great inventive, erudite and original artist, Baselitz is impressive in his scope and scale. To finish, here are some of his sculptures named after the Dresden women who cleared up the rubble of Dresden after the bombing. As a seven-year old boy, he was marked by the sight. His women are similar to the Easter Island figures, but with Baselitz's distinctive 'brutal' hacking and his yellow tempera paint.
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| Dresdner Frauen (Dresden Women) 1990 |
As a temporary installation to celebrate Baselitz's new status as associate foreign member of the French Academy of Fine Arts, there is a giant sculpture by him outside the French Institute, opposite the Louvre. Its title: 'Zero Dom' makes a play on the Dome of the Institute and the name of his paint supplier: Zero.
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| Zero Dom, 2021 (bronze) |
The Exhibition at the Pompidou Centre lasts until 7th March, 2022.
It is open daily, except Tuesdays, from 11am to 9pm and on Thursdays until 11pm.
Centre Pompidou, place Georges-Pompidou, 75004 Paris
Metro: Rambuteau/ Hotel de ville/ Chatelet
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