The art of Georg Baselitz
The art of Georg Baselitz
Just returned from the Georg Baselitz exhibition at the Royal Academy. Baselitz's work is steeped in the art of die Brucke but also makes reference to Munch (who, as you know, was an early member of TheBridge). Apart from Expressionism the second influence must be the Socialist Realism of the DDR, a regime Baselitz successfully escaped from. When I look at the art of Georg Baselitz I think of the motto of the SAS: 'who dares wins'. We call Elizabeth Regina, 'Her Majesty': we call George W Bush 'ThePresident': we even call Iraq 'a country': it's much less vertiginous to call Georg Baselitz 'an artist'. I liked the middle period paintings most. Later on he becomes reductive and minimalist, producing paintings which only succeeded in boring me. His art is a refreshing contrast to more traditional approaches. It's big, bumptious, bold, at times brash, primitive, but also spuriously innovative as when he simply hangs canvases upside down, thus creating confusion not innovation. Dropping The David off a skyscraper is shocking but it would only create havoc not a new art effect. He references other artists he likes, such as Emil Nolde or Edvard Munch, both strongly connected to die Brucke but I wonderedif he ever really grew away from their influence and into something that could be called George Baselitz?
Obviously some of the paintings are brash concoctions of surrealism and something that only Baselitz can create, which are bizarre, distended stumps of flesh, giants emerging from trees thronged by wild animals or wild aminals growing from this giant's arms, or two dogs cut in half by razor wire as they leapt through it, or hunters mutilated or amputated, inverted, reversed, glimpsed through smoke or mist or bubbling sulphuric acid. When Baselitz is bad he usually reverts back to the more obvious anti-shock ofTotalitarian art, for his art evolved out of a conflict with traditional, bourgeois artforms just as the art of Totalitarianism did. It's unsurprising that he occasionally reverts to something primitive, gargantuan, brash but formless, for its hard to sustain an art that is based merely on breaking the rules.
Whether he really creates something new is a matter for real debate.
Paul Murphy, The Royal Academy, London
Just returned from the Georg Baselitz exhibition at the Royal Academy. Baselitz's work is steeped in the art of die Brucke but also makes reference to Munch (who, as you know, was an early member of TheBridge). Apart from Expressionism the second influence must be the Socialist Realism of the DDR, a regime Baselitz successfully escaped from. When I look at the art of Georg Baselitz I think of the motto of the SAS: 'who dares wins'. We call Elizabeth Regina, 'Her Majesty': we call George W Bush 'ThePresident': we even call Iraq 'a country': it's much less vertiginous to call Georg Baselitz 'an artist'. I liked the middle period paintings most. Later on he becomes reductive and minimalist, producing paintings which only succeeded in boring me. His art is a refreshing contrast to more traditional approaches. It's big, bumptious, bold, at times brash, primitive, but also spuriously innovative as when he simply hangs canvases upside down, thus creating confusion not innovation. Dropping The David off a skyscraper is shocking but it would only create havoc not a new art effect. He references other artists he likes, such as Emil Nolde or Edvard Munch, both strongly connected to die Brucke but I wonderedif he ever really grew away from their influence and into something that could be called George Baselitz?
Obviously some of the paintings are brash concoctions of surrealism and something that only Baselitz can create, which are bizarre, distended stumps of flesh, giants emerging from trees thronged by wild animals or wild aminals growing from this giant's arms, or two dogs cut in half by razor wire as they leapt through it, or hunters mutilated or amputated, inverted, reversed, glimpsed through smoke or mist or bubbling sulphuric acid. When Baselitz is bad he usually reverts back to the more obvious anti-shock ofTotalitarian art, for his art evolved out of a conflict with traditional, bourgeois artforms just as the art of Totalitarianism did. It's unsurprising that he occasionally reverts to something primitive, gargantuan, brash but formless, for its hard to sustain an art that is based merely on breaking the rules.
Whether he really creates something new is a matter for real debate.
Paul Murphy, The Royal Academy, London
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