A personal confrontation with crisis compels Baselitz and the work he creates, in which abstraction also serves as an abolition of the image. ‘I was born into a destroyed order, a destroyed landscape, a destroyed people, a destroyed society,’ he says, describing post-war Germany. Yet, mobilising his experiences of destruction towards continual reinvention, Baselitz has introduced new elements into this new body of work – he has begun using nylon stockings as collage material, referencing the Dadaist Hannah Höch. It requires nerve, writes Gayford, to become a collagist as an octogenarian. ‘I exclusively deal with my own past, always,’ Baselitz asserts, but ‘it was a different painter who did those earlier works. It was me, to be sure, but in a different spirit with a different intention.’
White Cube Bermondsey
_
