A retrospective allows us to follow the evolutionary path trod by an artist. An example is the exhibition of drawings by Georg Baselitz at the Albertina. Though we might say revolutionary as much as evolutionary in his case.
- Features drawings from across his career
- Reinforces role of this medium to Baselitz’s oeuvre
- Runs June 7 – Sept 17, 2023
- See also:
- Albertina overview & info
- Other contemporary art exhibitions in Vienna
Drawing new paths
(Georg Baselitz, Dogs of Mourning, 2010; ink and watercolor on paper; The ALBERTINA Museum, Vienna – Gift of the Georg and Elke Baselitz Family © Georg Baselitz 2023; Photo: Jochen Littkemann, Berlin)
The 100 Drawings subtitle of the Baselitz exhibition honours the artist’s recent donation of precisely that number of drawings to the Albertina Museum in Vienna and the Morgan Library in New York.
The latter institution actually hosted a similar exhibition earlier in the year: Georg Baselitz: Six Decades of Drawings. Like the Albertina, the Morgan Library has some remarkable art; their collections include works by the likes of da Vinci, Rembrandt, Rubens, and Dürer.
Georg Baselitz remains one of those rare artists who tread genuinely new roads. Writing in the Guardian back in 2007, famed curator Norman Rosenthal compared him to Picasso and described Baselitz as:
…the greatest painter of our day still working in the great European tradition
The 100 Drawings exhibition allows us to trace the path of (r)evolution that saw Baselitz influence and impress post-1945 art, most notably through his upside down subjects. It takes us from the early 1960s through to the compositions of recent years.
(Georg Baselitz, My Yellow Period, 1997; Gouache and ink on paper; The ALBERTINA Museum, Vienna – Gift of the Georg and Elke Baselitz Family © Georg Baselitz 2023; Photo: Jochen Littkemann, Berlin)
Baselitz’s pioneering work diverted from what went before, but still drew on his own deep understanding of art history. Reminds me of the writing adage that you must know the rules before you can break them.
I don’t have the intellectual tools or qualifications to offer any kind of analysis, but that won’t stop me trying.
Viewing the drawings led me to appreciate that here is an artist of true erudition and innovation. One who seems to span positions and stand at interfaces…between figuration and abstraction, between historical and contemporary, between painting and drawing.
As such, the exhibition also demonstrates the importance of drawings within Baselitz’s output; these are works in their own right and not, for example, simple preliminary sketches.
Dates, tickets & tips
See for yourself and follow the path forged by Baselitz from June 7th to September 17th, 2023. An entrance ticket for or from the Albertina includes the exhibition.
For the first couple of weeks of 100 Drawings, catch numerous works by Baselitz at the nearby Kunsthistorisches Museum. The Baselitz. Naked Masters exhibition places his paintings and sculptures in dialogue with those of Old Masters.
Another tip is the Amazing exhibition (amazing by name and by nature) over at the Leopold Museum, featuring highlights from the Würth collection. Baselitz features alongside a veritable “who’s who” of the art world from the last 100 years or so.
And I even spotted a Baselitz in the No Feeling Is Final. The Skopje Solidarity Collection exhibition over at the MuseumsQuartier site of the Kunsthalle (on across the whole duration of 100 Drawings).
How to get to the drawings
Simply use the travel tips at the end of the main Albertina article.
Address: Albertinaplatz 1, 1010 Vienna