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| Georg Baselitz: why art's great shock merchant has set his sights on opera | Georg Baselitz: why art's great shock merchant has set his sights on opera |
| (about 18 hours later) | |
| Georg Baselitz has been warned about Glyndebourne: “They tell me it’s rather conservative and more than just a bit elitist,” he says, wondering how at home he will feel there when he visits later this month. “I don’t even like classical music that much – it bores me. Except for Bach. But he didn’t write opera so that’s not much good.” | Georg Baselitz has been warned about Glyndebourne: “They tell me it’s rather conservative and more than just a bit elitist,” he says, wondering how at home he will feel there when he visits later this month. “I don’t even like classical music that much – it bores me. Except for Bach. But he didn’t write opera so that’s not much good.” |
| The 77-year-old German artist has put the finishing touches to the new works he has created for the prestigious opera festival, which will be exhibited in a temporary White Cube gallery on site. As someone who enjoys a bit of controversy, he is looking forward to the response. “I was instructed not to make my work too heavy and difficult. They told me the audience is a bit older, somewhat conventional, and my art should be understood by them.” But Baselitz gave up hoping to be understood long ago. With a twinkle in his eye, he adds: “It’s my wish that I’ll manage to shock them nevertheless.” | |
| Baselitz has often thrived on shocking his public, though sometimes the reaction has been too much even for him. When his The Big Night Down the Drain, a lumpish image of a dwarf-like man unmistakably resembling Hitler who holds his oversized penis in front of him like a truncheon, was confiscated from his Berlin gallery in 1963, he says it “drove my family to the brink of ruin”. No one would buy his pictures and he was despised. He took the name plates off his house for fear of reprisals, a public prosecutor confiscated his paintings, and, as the unpaid bills piled up, a bailiff arrived and stuck labels on everything, “even my wife’s sewing machine”. | Baselitz has often thrived on shocking his public, though sometimes the reaction has been too much even for him. When his The Big Night Down the Drain, a lumpish image of a dwarf-like man unmistakably resembling Hitler who holds his oversized penis in front of him like a truncheon, was confiscated from his Berlin gallery in 1963, he says it “drove my family to the brink of ruin”. No one would buy his pictures and he was despised. He took the name plates off his house for fear of reprisals, a public prosecutor confiscated his paintings, and, as the unpaid bills piled up, a bailiff arrived and stuck labels on everything, “even my wife’s sewing machine”. |
| Looking back, he says, the provocation served him well in the long term, but at the time it seemed like a catastrophe. Then in 1980 came the scandal for which he is perhaps best known: at the Venice Biennale he showed a wooden sculpture of a figure appearing to make a “Heil Hitler!” salute, though he denies that that was his intention. | Looking back, he says, the provocation served him well in the long term, but at the time it seemed like a catastrophe. Then in 1980 came the scandal for which he is perhaps best known: at the Venice Biennale he showed a wooden sculpture of a figure appearing to make a “Heil Hitler!” salute, though he denies that that was his intention. |
| Sitting in his white-walled archive five minutes’ walk from Munich railway station, surrounded by grey metal cabinets full of drawers of his works, Baselitz recounts the mental stepping stones that led him to the images that make up his Glyndebourne series, which feature dancing, disembodied feet – variously resembling quavers and swastikas – that stubbornly push against the frame like a tango-dancer pressing into the floor. | Sitting in his white-walled archive five minutes’ walk from Munich railway station, surrounded by grey metal cabinets full of drawers of his works, Baselitz recounts the mental stepping stones that led him to the images that make up his Glyndebourne series, which feature dancing, disembodied feet – variously resembling quavers and swastikas – that stubbornly push against the frame like a tango-dancer pressing into the floor. |
| In a growly Saxon dialect, in which words sound like elongated gurgles that emerge from the back of the throat, he flits between references to Frida Kahlo, the Volksmusik he and his accordion-playing wife Elke like to perform (“our party piece”), to the sliced canvases of the Italian post-war avant-garde artist Lucio Fontana; not to mention The Magic Flute, the Annunciation and Courbet’s The Origin of the World, all brought up to describe what has influenced him. | In a growly Saxon dialect, in which words sound like elongated gurgles that emerge from the back of the throat, he flits between references to Frida Kahlo, the Volksmusik he and his accordion-playing wife Elke like to perform (“our party piece”), to the sliced canvases of the Italian post-war avant-garde artist Lucio Fontana; not to mention The Magic Flute, the Annunciation and Courbet’s The Origin of the World, all brought up to describe what has influenced him. |
| Baselitz was born Hans-Georg Kern in Deutschbaselitz, Saxony. The change to what he calls his “nom de guerre” was made to protect his teacher parents from the wrath of communist apparatchiks after he was thrown out of his East Berlin art school for “political immaturity” and went on to create further controversy that might have harmed them. It’s easy to assume that a 20-year-old rebel like Baselitz would have relished the stink (his sin, he says, was an attempt to “reinterpret Picasso’s war images in my own style”). But he says it was all too painful to see the anxiety he caused his long-suffering parents, who had tried “with much love” to keep him “on the straight and narrow”. | Baselitz was born Hans-Georg Kern in Deutschbaselitz, Saxony. The change to what he calls his “nom de guerre” was made to protect his teacher parents from the wrath of communist apparatchiks after he was thrown out of his East Berlin art school for “political immaturity” and went on to create further controversy that might have harmed them. It’s easy to assume that a 20-year-old rebel like Baselitz would have relished the stink (his sin, he says, was an attempt to “reinterpret Picasso’s war images in my own style”). But he says it was all too painful to see the anxiety he caused his long-suffering parents, who had tried “with much love” to keep him “on the straight and narrow”. |
| “I was the only person from my class who left my village,” he says. “Everyone else stayed. In fact, they’re still there. And then to be thrown out of your art college, that was such a shameful thing to happen in those days. My father went to the school to plead with the director, but to no avail.” Ultimately the experience was to greatly contribute to the artist he became. “But at the time it felt miserable.” From an early age, he has thrived on his independence and exploited the sense of being an outsider, resisting the strong impulse to conform. | “I was the only person from my class who left my village,” he says. “Everyone else stayed. In fact, they’re still there. And then to be thrown out of your art college, that was such a shameful thing to happen in those days. My father went to the school to plead with the director, but to no avail.” Ultimately the experience was to greatly contribute to the artist he became. “But at the time it felt miserable.” From an early age, he has thrived on his independence and exploited the sense of being an outsider, resisting the strong impulse to conform. |
| “Do you renounce or deny your warped dialect, or do you absolutely want to hold on to it at any cost and parade your own variation or mutation of it?” he asks, citing the example of the pianist Glenn Gould. “You can be the best interpreter of Bach ever, but only when you hum along at the same time, drawing on something from your own experience, only then are you exceptional, because you’re bringing something unique with you.” | “Do you renounce or deny your warped dialect, or do you absolutely want to hold on to it at any cost and parade your own variation or mutation of it?” he asks, citing the example of the pianist Glenn Gould. “You can be the best interpreter of Bach ever, but only when you hum along at the same time, drawing on something from your own experience, only then are you exceptional, because you’re bringing something unique with you.” |
| Baselitz’s desire to go against the grain also helps explain his urge to paint upside down even though, as he says, “I know it makes people feel they’re being taken for a ride.” And working with the canvas flat on the floor does nothing for his ageing back and knees. He’s the first to call his refusal to have assistants “idiotic” but he insists “the truth is I wouldn’t be able to put up with anyone”. | Baselitz’s desire to go against the grain also helps explain his urge to paint upside down even though, as he says, “I know it makes people feel they’re being taken for a ride.” And working with the canvas flat on the floor does nothing for his ageing back and knees. He’s the first to call his refusal to have assistants “idiotic” but he insists “the truth is I wouldn’t be able to put up with anyone”. |
| The effect that living under two dictatorships has had on Baselitz is key to understanding him. When he was born, Hitler had been in power for five years. The Third Reich “felt so normal and so right that there was absolutely no doubt about the whole thing”. He was seven when war ended. “I always felt shackled. Even more so because one dictatorship followed immediately on the heels of the other. I experienced the GDR [communist East Germany] from 1945 until 1958 – the most important learning years for me.” | The effect that living under two dictatorships has had on Baselitz is key to understanding him. When he was born, Hitler had been in power for five years. The Third Reich “felt so normal and so right that there was absolutely no doubt about the whole thing”. He was seven when war ended. “I always felt shackled. Even more so because one dictatorship followed immediately on the heels of the other. I experienced the GDR [communist East Germany] from 1945 until 1958 – the most important learning years for me.” |
| He has never been able to escape what it means to be German and, like others of his generation – he names Gerhard Richter and Anselm Kiefer – he has confronted it head-on. “This pressure of being German really made us what we are,” he says. “Had we not had it, I don’t know whether we would have succeeded as artists.” | He has never been able to escape what it means to be German and, like others of his generation – he names Gerhard Richter and Anselm Kiefer – he has confronted it head-on. “This pressure of being German really made us what we are,” he says. “Had we not had it, I don’t know whether we would have succeeded as artists.” |
| If women are ambitious enough to succeed, they can do so ... but up until now, they have failed | If women are ambitious enough to succeed, they can do so ... but up until now, they have failed |
| The German process of Vergangenheitsbewältigung, or wrestling the past into submission, is not something he has deliberately chosen to embrace. “Rather it is just there. It has many sides, but the most unpleasant is that wherever you go as a German, you’re called out for it. You always get a good slap across the face, and you accept it because you have no other option because the weight of guilt is just too great. The extent of what happened in 12 short years – there’s no excuse for it. We are the losers.” | The German process of Vergangenheitsbewältigung, or wrestling the past into submission, is not something he has deliberately chosen to embrace. “Rather it is just there. It has many sides, but the most unpleasant is that wherever you go as a German, you’re called out for it. You always get a good slap across the face, and you accept it because you have no other option because the weight of guilt is just too great. The extent of what happened in 12 short years – there’s no excuse for it. We are the losers.” |
| This feeling of being bashed around maybe goes some way to explain why Baselitz so unashamedly speaks his mind. He will still not back down on his oft-quoted theory that women make lousy painters. “The market doesn’t lie,” he says. “Even though the painting classes in art academies are more than 90% made up by women, it’s a fact that very few of them succeed. It’s nothing to do with education, or chances, or male gallery owners. It’s to do with something else and it’s not my job to answer why it’s so. It doesn’t just apply to painting, either, but also music.” | This feeling of being bashed around maybe goes some way to explain why Baselitz so unashamedly speaks his mind. He will still not back down on his oft-quoted theory that women make lousy painters. “The market doesn’t lie,” he says. “Even though the painting classes in art academies are more than 90% made up by women, it’s a fact that very few of them succeed. It’s nothing to do with education, or chances, or male gallery owners. It’s to do with something else and it’s not my job to answer why it’s so. It doesn’t just apply to painting, either, but also music.” |
| As his annoyance grows at being pushed on the issue, the pitch of his voice raises, and his eyebrows appear to touch the rim of his trilby hat as he asks: “What does it matter so much? If women are ambitious enough to succeed, they can do so, thank you very much. But up until now, they have failed to prove that they want to. Normally, women sell themselves well, but not as painters.” | As his annoyance grows at being pushed on the issue, the pitch of his voice raises, and his eyebrows appear to touch the rim of his trilby hat as he asks: “What does it matter so much? If women are ambitious enough to succeed, they can do so, thank you very much. But up until now, they have failed to prove that they want to. Normally, women sell themselves well, but not as painters.” |
| Gone are the days when Baselitz struggled to make a living, when people paid just 100 Deutschmarks for his paintings (in instalments). Last year, his 1983 painting Der Brückechor sold at Christie’s in New York for $7.4m (£4.8m). “The situation for us artists is heavenly nowadays. I never could have imagined this when I started out.” Buffered by his success, he can now laugh at the days when he was often rejected and dismissed, particularly at Günter Grass, with whom he’d studied at art college; the writer called Baselitz a charlatan. “Grass was an asshole,” he says of the late Nobel prize winner. “A lousy artist. And when it came out that he’d been in the SS, I know I shouldn’t have, but I was happy. Something akin to schadenfreude.” | Gone are the days when Baselitz struggled to make a living, when people paid just 100 Deutschmarks for his paintings (in instalments). Last year, his 1983 painting Der Brückechor sold at Christie’s in New York for $7.4m (£4.8m). “The situation for us artists is heavenly nowadays. I never could have imagined this when I started out.” Buffered by his success, he can now laugh at the days when he was often rejected and dismissed, particularly at Günter Grass, with whom he’d studied at art college; the writer called Baselitz a charlatan. “Grass was an asshole,” he says of the late Nobel prize winner. “A lousy artist. And when it came out that he’d been in the SS, I know I shouldn’t have, but I was happy. Something akin to schadenfreude.” |
| And he enjoys the increasing recognition he has enjoyed in recent years. A big moment was former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder’s decision to hang one of his paintings – an upside down eagle, the symbol of Germany – over his desk in the new Berlin chancellery to send a message about the modern Germany that he felt he stood for. “He wanted to provoke. He used it to show how unconventional he was compared to his predecessors: Adenauer, who collected the Old Masters, most of which turned out to be fakes; and Kohl, who was anything other than contemporary.” | And he enjoys the increasing recognition he has enjoyed in recent years. A big moment was former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder’s decision to hang one of his paintings – an upside down eagle, the symbol of Germany – over his desk in the new Berlin chancellery to send a message about the modern Germany that he felt he stood for. “He wanted to provoke. He used it to show how unconventional he was compared to his predecessors: Adenauer, who collected the Old Masters, most of which turned out to be fakes; and Kohl, who was anything other than contemporary.” |
| He has continued to enjoy huge acclaim, though more abroad than in Germany – with a retrospective at the Royal Academy in London; and last year a series of his paintings appeared in the exhibition Baselitz and his Generation at the British Museum, where he was hailed for redefining German art. But there was nothing more flattering or vindicating, he says, than when Barney’s department store in New York recently dressed their window with Styrofoam reproductions of his “goblet heads”, sculpted with a chainsaw in the 1980s. “My son Anton sent me a picture of it,” he says. “Imagine, these were works that were once called brutal, impossible and vulgar. Suddenly they’re being used to decorate a posh shop window in downtown New York. It tickled me pink.” | He has continued to enjoy huge acclaim, though more abroad than in Germany – with a retrospective at the Royal Academy in London; and last year a series of his paintings appeared in the exhibition Baselitz and his Generation at the British Museum, where he was hailed for redefining German art. But there was nothing more flattering or vindicating, he says, than when Barney’s department store in New York recently dressed their window with Styrofoam reproductions of his “goblet heads”, sculpted with a chainsaw in the 1980s. “My son Anton sent me a picture of it,” he says. “Imagine, these were works that were once called brutal, impossible and vulgar. Suddenly they’re being used to decorate a posh shop window in downtown New York. It tickled me pink.” |
| • Glyndebourne festival 2015, in East Sussex, starts on 21 May and runs until 30 August. White Cube at Glyndebourne will be on site throughout |
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