Broken Heroes or Images upside down?
He is one of the most famous graphic artists of the present. Georg Baselitz is one of the few Germans who had solo exhibitions at the MoMA, New York. The 79-year-old still does not have any plans to retire. Now the Ernst Barlach Museum in Wedel presents his latest exhibition "Gebrochene Helden".
Hans Georg Kern was born on 23rd January 1938 in Deutschbaselitz in the GDR. Therefore, he grew up in the Cold War, which had a sustainable effect on his work. In 1958, Baselitz moved from East to West Berlin. The reason for this was his study, which he had to discontinue for reasons of "societal immaturity". In West Berlin, he continued his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts under Professor Hann Trier. Here he joined the contemporary movement that revolved around informal art, Tachism, abstract expressionism and conceptual art.
Even at that time, his art worlds developed around art brut, inspired by authors such as Antonin Artaud and Charles Baudelaire. He drew expressive, figurative motifs, as well as painfully distorted persons or body parts. With these series, the enfant terrible of the art scene for the first time participated at the Documenta 2 in Kassel in 1959. During his first solo exhibition at the Werner & Katz Gallery in Berlin, two of his artworks were confiscated. Baselitz had his first handmade scandal.
In his artworks, Baselitz relies on conscious alienation and deformation of the motifs. Many of his artworks are abstract. He began to develop this abstraction starting in 1969, painting his motifs upside down. This approach made the exceptional artist world famous.
In the 1970s, the pugnacious artist joined the neo expressionists, better known as the "new fauves". Furthermore, also sculptures belong to the expressionist artworks of Baselitz. For woodwork, he preferred to us a chain saw. His wooden sculptures were often casted in bronze so that they could be used for outdoor installations.
Baselitz´ new exhibition "Gebrochene Helden" in the Ernst Barlach Museum in Wedel is about men who do not know to where they belong. He shows impressively on a variety of printing graphics, how these men lost sense and order, after they once moved gloriously and radiantly into the world. The exhibition was realized in close collaboration with private lenders. The opening hours are always from Tuesday to Sunday from 11am - 6pm.
