photos: © Georg Baselitz 2016 . + Städel Museum
In 1965, Georg Baselitz perceived the order of post-war Germany in its state of multifaceted destruction – ideologies and political systems, but also artistic styles were up for discussion. This lack of order was very much in keeping with the artist’s own nature: appropriation through artistic categorization was something that remained foreign to him all his life. From the perspective of his fundamentally sceptical attitude he therefore emphasized the equivocal aspects of his time. His monumental “Heroes” in their tattered battle dress, figures marked as much by failure as they are by resignation, possess an accordingly contradictory character. The fact that the artist – who was a mere twenty-seven years of age at the time – devoted himself to the subject of “Heroes” or “Types” at all was provocative per se. (Male) heroism and its onetime exponents had been called into question by the war and the post-war period. The fragile and paradoxical character of the “Heroes” with regard to content finds its equivalent in their form.
Städel Museum
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