Georg Baselitz
In Colour! Chiaroscuro Woodcuts of the Renaissance, from the collection of Georg Baselitz and the Albertina
Both at the Albertina, Vienna, November 29th to February 16th
Georg Baselitz is not for everyone. His early work stinks of brutality and decay; his self-portrait “The Big Night Down the Drain”, 1962, is worse. Showing a short, fleshy masturbating figure, with an evil vacant stare, it was soon confiscated by the East German authorities. But don’t let that put you off.
Born Hans-Georg Kern in 1938, in Deutschbaselitz, Saxony, he changed his name in 1961 to honour or humour his tiny home town. He studied at the East Berlin Academy of Art but was soon expelled. He didn’t just break the rules, he made his own. Full of jarring colours, weird groupings and sombre motifs, his work is neither beautiful nor charming, but it has humour and real quality.
He is best known for his upside-down paintings (from 1969). To look at one is like reading backwards. You become more conscious, sharply aware of every brush-stroke. You notice things you might have missed as the style becomes more important than the subject. Logic’s loss is freedom’s gain.
In 2005, Baselitz revisited his early work, playing with it, tweaking the colours, adding some things and removing others: a dangerous game for an artist. The “Remix” paintings are bigger and more vibrant than their sinister siblings. “B. for Larry (Remix)” has a spontaneity that the stolid original lacks. It could be by a different artist, but each pair sits together, pushing the possibilities of painting. The Albertina has two parallel exhibitions, one a retrospective, the other a glimpse into his Renaissance woodcuts; both let us into a complex world.
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