Georg Baselitz: Peintre – Graveur IV

"The painting partisan"

Cornelius Tittel called Georg Baselitz "the painting partisan" in a review (3.11.2021) in Die Welt of the major retrospective at the Centre Pompidou. For Heiner Müller (1991), in a conversation with Alexander Kluge, the partisan was "in a modern, i.e. technocratically defined structure, something like a dog on the motorway". And in this outsider status, Tittel sees the artist Georg Baselitz becoming a monolith over the decades, whom "the Académie des Beaux-Arts has now accepted into its ranks as the only German. The sword he was presented with during the ceremony is intended to symbolise his immortality. It was no longer needed." Together with the editors Rainer Michael Mason and Detlev Gretenkort, we are now announcing the publication of Volume IV (1989-1992) of the graphic oeuvre; it contains the works no. 718-1010. As already stated with the publication of Volume III, there is no question that Georg Baselitz's graphic oeuvre stands independently alongside his paintings and sculptures. The artist has not only characterised the medium for decades in the diversity of his various technical approaches and solutions, but has also placed it at the forefront of post-war modern art through his unparalleled virtuosity.