Georg Baselitz: Baselitz Maniera – Nonconformism as a source of imagination

“When making a print, similar to a drawing, marks and hatchings are needed to assemble what you want to represent, so, for example, bodies. The extreme anti-naturalism that is utilized there interested me. It could be exaggerated extension or stretching, cartilaginification, the ornamental elements on the sheets, but it could also be the sensuality, the attraction that emanates from the engraving so that you can leave behind all that is constrained by content, as in many sheets of the School of Fontainebleau.” (Georg Baselitz, 1985)

Early in his artistic career, and then more intensely following his study abroad at the Villa Romana in Florence in 1965, Georg Baselitz (*1938 in Deutschbaselitz, Germany) became interested both as artist and collector in all facets of the graphic arts. For over 50 years Baselitz, who celebrated his 80th birthday in 2018, has nurtured and maintained a deep interest in Mannerist prints, a material that was little known when he first began exploring it.

Baselitz Maniera – Nonconformism as a source of imagination brings graphics by Baselitz into an exciting dialogue with significant Mannerist pieces. The exhibition of the Dresden Kupferstich-Kabinett will focus in detail on the artist’s reception of Mannerism, a phenomenon evident in the works themselves but never before explored in an exhibition. Georg Baselitz’ interest in Mannerism is reflected in his personal collection of prints, assembled over many decades, which today counts as one of the most significant in the world. It is also revealed in his numerous visits to the prints and drawings study rooms of major public collections in Germany and abroad. The Kupferstich-Kabinett, with its outstanding holdings, has long been among those destinations. A special feature of this exhibition will be the artist’s selection of several works from Dresden’s extensive collection that he considers foundational.

Beside these pieces of the Dresden Kupferstich-Kabinett a selection of works from the collections of the G. and A. Gercken Foundation and the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung in Munich will show how Georg Baselitz deliberately dissociated himself from abstract painting at the start of the 1960s. He used more than just the topics of his paintings to position himself in opposition to the contemporary artistic zeitgeist, following his own path even in terms of the graphic printing techniques he preferred. In the 1960s, a new era began in reproductive graphics, with silk-screen and offset printing—but Baselitz turned his back on such forms of mass reproduction because of their lack of originality. Instead, he experimented with state proofs, producing small series of works, some of which he altered individually after the impression was taken.

With this creative insistence, Baselitz brought traditional printmaking techniques back to the attention of contemporary art, modernising it considerably and thus finding his very own, personal aesthetic—a “Baselitz maniera” which he has constantly refined and perfected to the present day.