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Georg Baselitz
Nostalgia in Istanbul
May 29 - June 23, 1998
Deutsche Guggenheim is pleased to present Nostalgia in Istanbul, a new series of works by Georg Baselitz, on view from May 29 through June 23, 1999. These large-scale paintings, a continuation of the series on display at the Reichstag, reflect motifs of Slavic folk art and the paintings of Caspar David Friedrich, both of which were inspirations to Baselitz. This exhibition is complimented by Baselitz works from the Deutsche Bank collection, providing an additional dialogue between the new pieces and specially selected watercolors and drawings, some on view to audiences for the first time. The sculpture "Ding mit Asien" is also on view, demonstrating the full range of the artist's contemporary oeuvre.
Georg Baselitz, today an internationally acclaimed artist, was born Hans-Georg Kern in Deutschbaselitz/Saxony in 1938. In 1956, he began to study art at the Kunsthochschule in East Berlin, from which he was expelled in 1957 for "social immaturity." Nonetheless, the same year he continued to pursue his art studies at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in West Berlin. There he came to feel that "the uniform language of Abstract Expressionism had degenerated to become mere design." Baselitz's status as an outsider had not changed.
Although he fought for the autonomy of an art in which the painterly means constituted the work's actual content, Baselitz was nonetheless dismayed by the "nebulous arbitrariness" of informal non-representational art. He was of the firm conviction that it was not the subject as such that prevented artwork from developing its own laws, but rather the perceived significance of what the subject represents. Baselitz consequently sought forms of expression that removed not the subject but its significance. He began by cutting up his motifs, both paintings and drawings, before actually turning the subject upside-down in his paintings of 1969. Baselitz has remained committed to this concept of art to present day.
Autobiographical elements were present in Baselitz's painting from the very outset, especially in his representation of people and landscapes. However, it was not until Baselitz's 1996 series "Family Pictures" that they became the artist's dominant theme. The watercolors and paintings from this series feature a number of portraits based on old family photographs. Baselitz states that this "sentimentality" was prompted by his reading of the Stasi reports on his youth in the GDR.
The artist's memories of this period are also linked to the culture of the Sorbs, in whose native territory Deutschbaselitz is located. His work from mid-1997 borrowed motifs from Slavic folk art which clearly display a link to these early encounters with surroundings then felt to be "exotic."
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Portrayals of dancers striking unfamiliar poses are combined with other elements drawn from Baselitz's predilection for Turkish folkculture, evoking a chain of autobiographical associations for the artist. The paintings feature graphically contoured figures which are often surrounded by oval areas of color, placed on flat whitish-gray backgrounds with striking dark-red rose motifs.
This "emblematic" form of representation is even more pronounced in Baselitz's paintings from 1998, which take their cue from German Romanticism. In this work Baselitz uses motifs from four famous woodcuts designed by Romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich and cut by his brother Christian Friedrich; "Melancholy," "Woman On The Abyss," "Sleeping Boy," and "Self-Portrait." Baselitz has significantly enlarged the centrally placed figure in these small graphic works, isolating them from the surrounding landscape, and presenting them via a light, transparent style of painting devoid of perspective.
The evolution of Baselitz's art beyond traditional forms of composition and perspective, which began in the 1960s with the isolation, fragmentation and inversion of the picture's object, reaches a new phase in this exhibition. Biographical in inspiration, the works feature new painterly devices combined with the subjective interpretation of historical figuration, thereby creating a new visual experience. In conjunction with the exhibition, Georg Baselitz created a special edition print exclusively for the Deutsche Guggenheim.
Edition No. 7 "Schwarze Rosen", 1999, is printed in an edition of 50 signed copies, numbered in Arabic numerals, printed in drypoint and aquatints on BFK deckle-edged handmade paper. Price DM 2,800.
To accompany the exhibition, two catalogues will be available: "Georg Baselitz - Artist in the Financial Year, 1998" and "Georg Baselitz - the Deutsche Bank Collection." The Museum Shop will also be selling thirteen multiples and prints by students in Baselitz' class at the Hochschule der Künste, Berlin.
Admission to the exhibition "Georg Baselitz - Nostalgia in Istanbul," at the Deutsche Guggenheim is free.
Press Conference: Friday, May 28, 1999, 11 a.m.
Images of the exhibition
are available online at www.photo-files.de/guggenheim in a 300 dpi quality.
Further information at
Manager: Svenja Gräfin von Reichenbach
Press: Sara Bernshausen
Phone: +49-30-202093-14
Fax: +49-30-202093-20
email: berlin.guggenheim@db.com
Internet: www.deutsche-guggenheim.de
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