{"id":1925268,"date":"2026-05-08T13:29:59","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T10:29:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1925268"},"modified":"2026-05-08T13:29:59","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T10:29:59","slug":"with-georg-baselitzs-final-show-in-venice-a-provocateur-ends-softly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1925268","title":{"rendered":"With Georg Baselitz’s Final Show, in Venice, a Provocateur Ends Softly"},"content":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/5_034_GeorgBaselitz_FondazioneCini-HIGH.jpg?w=1024″]<\/p>\n

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\n\tSix days after the death of Georg Baselitz, his longtime dealer Thaddeaus Ropac opened an exhibition in Venice this week that the artist had already accepted would be his last.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAt the\u00a0Fondazione\u00a0Giorgio\u00a0Cini\u00a0on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore, \u201cEroi d\u2019Oro\u201d<\/em>\u00a0(\u201cHeroes of Gold\u201d) brings together the final paintings Baselitz made in his lifetime. He died in April at 88, and in a prerecorded film made for the show, he refers to the works without hesitation as \u201cmy last paintings.\u201d He says he intended them as a kind of \u201csummation\u201d of everything he had done.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen\u00a0ARTnews<\/em>\u00a0spoke to Baselitz just days before his passing, he was even more direct. \u201cI have a long biography to look back on,\u201d he said. \u201cI have painted an incredibly large number of pictures over the course of more than 60 years. Now that I\u2019m more or less at the end of my painting activity, I thought I should draw some kind of conclusion.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIt is a rare note of finality from an artist who built his reputation on a refusal of good taste and, often, of what was considered fashionable. From the scandal of his early figurative work in the 1960s, through the upside-down paintings that became his signature, to the wooden figures shown at the 1980 Venice Biennale that appeared to salute like broken monuments, his practice was defined by disruption. But the exhibition that Baselitz wanted to be his last is more a distillation of his career than another controversial show.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe paintings are enormous, almost architectural in scale, and covered in gold ground. Across this luminous surface, Baselitz drew thin, ink-like figures, either himself or his wife Elke, lying horizontally, as if seen from above. The bodies float in an undefined space, at once intimate and strangely cosmic.<\/p>\n

Baselitz was uncharacteristically precise about what the gold was doing when I spoke to him. \u201cGold absorbs space, shadows, spatiality,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd on top of that, just a drawing, as if on a piece of paper, a nude drawing \u2026 as fine as I could manage.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThat idea of subtraction rather than addition runs through the entire series. The bodies are reduced to thin black lines. They become ephemeral.<\/p>\n

Baselitz has rarely used these gold grounds, which he connected them to Fayum mummy portraits, Sienese altarpieces, and Byzantine icons, all of which depict the dead. \u201cThe effect of these images is that the portrait exists in a spaceless or shadowless condition,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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George Baselitz, Die goldene Kittelsch\u00fcrze<\/em>, 2025.<\/span>\u00a92026 Georg Baselitz\/Photo Stefan Altenburger\/Courtesy Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, London, Paris, Salzburg, Milan, and Seoul<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tFrench art historian Eric Darragon, who knew the artist well, told me that the gold backgrounds borrow the full visual authority from the likes of Sienese painters of the 14th and 15th centuries, such as Duccio, Simone Martini, and Fra Angelico, as well as Stefan Lochner, a German painter who worked in the International Gothic style. These artists used gold to suggest divine space, eternity, and spiritual meaning. Darragon argued that Baselitz adopted this familiar visual language but removed its religious function. In turn, it becomes what Darragon described as an \u201cimpassive, definitive surface\u201d that \u201csanctifies nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a result, he told me \u201cEroi d\u2019Oro\u201d is paradoxical, in that it is an ending that still behaves like a beginning. \u201cAfter 60 years of intense activity, Baselitz felt a sense of fulfillment,\u201d Darragon said, but explained that this idea of closure is unstable. The artist\u2019s defining condition is \u201chis constant need to start afresh, to set off into the unknown with all the risks that entails.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Georg Baselitz\u2019s exhibition at the Fondazione Cini in Venice.<\/span>Courtesy Fondazione Cini<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tI asked Baselitz how he wanted the exhibition to shape or challenge the way his work is ultimately understood. \u201cI am not responsible for what happens,\u201d he said. \u201cMy communication with the public has always been very sparse and restrained. It is clearly evident that this is not theater, nor mythological activity.\u201d<\/p>\n

If he was reserved, it may have been due to wariness. Comments he made in a 2013 interview with the German magazine\u00a0Der Spiegel<\/em>\u00a0about female painters landed him in hot water. He suggested women did not make good painters, and was set upon by the art world as a result. In a 2021 interview with\u00a0Artnet News<\/em>, he said his words were \u201ccited out of context and [caused] misunderstandings.\u201d He added that he strongly rejected the idea of judging art through identity categories. \u201cI find it utterly stupid to classify art by quotas: male, female, Black, white \u2026 for me there is only good or bad art,\u201d he added.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Georg Baselitz, Die Engel sind ausgefallen<\/em>, 2025.<\/span>\u00a92026 Georg Baselitz\/Photo Stefan Altenburger\/Courtesy Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, London, Paris, Salzburg, Milan, and Seoul<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tI asked him how he reflected on his infamous comments, and if his position had changed. \u201cThat was a big provocation,\u201d he replied, without elaborating.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tSo now that he is gone, where does Baselitz\u2019s legacy rank in the history of contemporary art?<\/p>\n

\u201cBaselitz did not believe that history proceeded from results that simply add up,\u201d Darragon told me. \u201cFor a work to emerge, he believed that everything must be called into question. He did, moreover, make \u2018zero\u2019 a sort of existential emblem that defined him, but this demand, far from being a clean slate, implied, on the contrary, a rediscovery of the past\u2014a past that has been neglected or even forgotten.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBaselitz, Darragon added, \u201cstands apart from the mainstream of his time.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

[analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/artists\/georg-baselitz-last-show-venice-fondazione-cini-1234784657\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/5_034_GeorgBaselitz_FondazioneCini-HIGH.jpg?w=1024″] Six days after the death of Georg Baselitz, his longtime dealer Thaddeaus Ropac opened an exhibition in Venice this week that the artist had already accepted would be his last.\u00a0 At the\u00a0Fondazione\u00a0Giorgio\u00a0Cini\u00a0on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore, \u201cEroi d\u2019Oro\u201d\u00a0(\u201cHeroes of Gold\u201d) brings together the final paintings Baselitz made in his lifetime. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-1925268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1925268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1925268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1925268\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1925268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1925268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1925268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}