Georg Baselitz: A River That Bears The Name Of Its Hometown.

A person's life is like a river.

In the late 1980s in China, Zeng Fan Zhi saw a classmate painting the characters upside down in a university sketch class. He was amazed by the way the characters suspended on the top of the picture. Later, he learned from the teacher's reference room and world art magazine that this is the original feature of German new expressionist artist Georg Baselitz. He said: "Georg Baselitz has brought an opportunity to provide reference for our thinking at that time. I drew attention to the German avant-garde art that was taking place, and I came to know some other post-war German artists. I realized that under their innovative symbols, deep thinking is hidden, which is precisely the key factor that can promote the development of art history. This is the story of the intersection of Chinese artist Ceng Fanzhi and Georg Baselitz.

Georg Baselitz. Data map

From the source

The most tortuous and secret secrets of rivers are often hidden in the source.

Georg Baselitz, formerly known as Hans-Georg Kern, was born in 1938 in a small village called "Deutschbaselitz" in the original East Germany. His pastoral style of childhood ended abruptly when the Second World War began in 1939. When the war ended, Georg, who was only 7 years old, began a long nightmares of escape and famine. After the war, the ruins of ruined wasteland also laid a bleak foundation for his youth, which had a profound influence on his later works.

As a child, a Louis-Ferdinand von Rayski copy of Wermsdorfer Wald (1859), which was hung in the school church, triggered Georg's interest in artistic creation. In 1955, at the age of 17, he was filled with passion for art and applied for admission to the Dresden College of art, but was rejected. The following year, he applied for the fine arts and applied University of the Arts in East Berlin, but soon was expelled because of "immature political thought". In 1957, he transferred to the Academy of Arts in West Berlin to continue his studies. Because in early years, he learned realism in East Germany and went to a new art school. The teacher mainly taught abstract paintings of Paris painting school and denied specific images, which made Georg feel "acclimatized". But he insisted on retaining the "character image" as the focus of his creation, and boldly fought against the painting style which was contrary to the prevailing mainstream of Western painting.

He insisted on consciously introducing characters into the picture, but most of the characters were deformed or incomplete, others were bleeding or sick. In an interview with the twenty-first Century business reporter, Richard Calvocoressi, a scholar and an art historian, pointed out that looking back at the characters created by Georg in the early 1960s, it is "in sharp contrast to the healthy and muscular figures in the political propaganda of Nazism." For the abandoned agricultural vehicles depicted in his works, tattered robes, torn flags, dead trees and destroyed buildings, he said these were the 1945 views of the artist. "These elements imply that artists are powerless in the face of historical events," he said. To this day, Georg does not believe in authority in the depth of consciousness, nor does he like any ideology.

Growing up in a stressful and uncomfortable environment, Georg has been looking for an unrestrained and powerful way of expression. Passion and depression, fanaticism and depression, rebellion and tradition are deeply rooted in the artist's character and works. In 1961, he completed his studies. In the same year, he officially changed his name to Georg Baselitz, though he was running the other side, and he also took the name of his hometown and set out on the road.

Rocks and tides

In 1963, Georg held its first solo exhibition in West Berlin, but when he was about to "really make a name for himself", there was a scandal that made him "notorious" overnight in the art world. In this exhibition, the prosecutor confiscated his two works, the late night of the lost and the naked man, on the grounds of indecency. The artist insists that the works represent the embarrassing situation and the introspection of shame in Germany after the war from invaders to defeated nations. The two paintings eventually returned to the original in 1965, but later, data showed that it was probably the farce that the gallery wanted to come out of, and the artists also fell into the public's doubts about their character since then. Years later, Georg repainted the late night of the loss. He told the German art magazine in 2006: "later, I always ask myself such a question, can I correct the mistakes I made? Should I make up my mind to re create my early work and make it more perfect? People always go forward. "

The more unusual places flow, the more powerful the river is. After a few years of silence, Georg finally came to the climax of his own creation. In 1969, he created the first inverted version of the forest on his head, using his childhood enlightenment as a model. Inversion makes familiar things appear strangeness, retaining both concrete and abstract effects. For audiences, the huge visual impact slows down the process of appreciating and understanding works. Originally represented as a concrete element, breaking away from the bondage of reality and becoming a pure creative language, it has a more general sense of abstraction.

In an interview with the twenty-first Century economic news reporter, Georg Baselitz admitted that if there is no comparison between the content of the picture and the nature, there is no such thing as proper order in the world. Through the upside down way to break people's visual habits, arouse the audience's attention, in order to break people's awareness of the established order and image, thus triggering a more pure appreciation and discussion of painting.

"It is worth noting that he began to pour from the beginning of the pen, instead of painting the whole picture upside down." Richard, an art historian, said: "this may be a metaphor for his absurd world, which was then divided into Germany and divided Europe."

Georg's innovative exploration of freely switching between concrete and abstract is not only an extension of German traditional expressionism, but also a spirit of avant-garde betrayal. Although his portraits or personalities are prototypes or permeated with the memory of German national history, he never let the narrative drown the essence of painting. In an interview with the twenty-first Century economic report, Nick Simunovic, director general of Asia's regional Gallery, said that the most attractive part of Georg was: "he never gave up the image of" man "as the core of painting. The motive force behind his expressionist painting and the spirit of humanism contained throughout his works are always in the mood of his works. Focusing on the individual existence and the human situation always reflects his unique humanistic care with his fellow postwar artists. He really gained public recognition and admiration and was called the new German expressionist national treasure artist.

Until the sound of the sea

As the river flows to the plain, the more and more stable rivers become more tributaries with the spread of the terrain. In his later works of Georg, his creative mood gradually became gentle and extended more new ideas with artistic and experimental characteristics.

From 1970 to 1979, he broke through the routine in artistic creation, attempted to paint with fingers instead of paintbrushes. In 1980s and 1990s, he even crossed the boundary in Woodcut sculptures of etchings, linen prints and large statues, revealing the artistic exploration aimed at returning to the subject. But no matter what kind of experiments and changes he put into practice, "inverted images" have never been abandoned. According to James Lawrence, this series of "Repetition" is actually reviving and resurrecting his own past. Richard commented to reporters that at this stage, whether in painting, sculpture or print making, Georg tried to rethink the original media, "just like everything is back to its origin."

Since 2000, Georg's strokes have become light and flowing like watercolors, and the color tone is more of a preference for bright colors. In the summer of 2019, Georg opened a new series of creations. He first depicted the inverted image of a character on a blank canvas, and then printed it on another black background while the pigment was not dry. There are basically no changes in the two pictures that mirror the relationship, but they form a more gentle edge than direct painting, and at the same time have some unpredictable characteristics. As for the content of the creation, the artist revisited the early themes and personal history, and also reflected on his old process and his close relationship with his wife Elke. With 13 new series of works, in May 21, 2020, Georg held the first solo exhibition called "several years later" at the Hongkong Gao Gu Gallery, which is also the first reopening of the exhibition in the global high art gallery since the outbreak of the new crown pneumonia epidemic. Georg, who has been struggling for the rest of his life and setting up a new life in his lifetime, has made this exhibition even less meaningful in a slightly depressed economic and cultural atmosphere.

This year, Georg has reached the age of 82. In an interview with reporters, he said that during the isolation period, he insisted on creating in his studio. When asked how he viewed the relationship between disasters and human beings after many twists and turns in his life, he said succinctly: "to be a man is to witness or experience disaster. No matter in the past or in the future, disasters can only be sustained by human beings.

This relief and neglect is no longer the answer given by a river. There is the sound of the sea.