Georg Baselitz Quotes
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You cannot deny your origins: I love Kirchner more than Matisse, although Matisse was a greater artist. That isn't to do with nationality. It's a stronger feeling.
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Nowhere in my collection do I, say, have a Auguste Renoir painting. Because everybody knows that this is a good painter without me having to demonstrate it.
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I have always had the feeling that other people are too stupid to discover interesting things. That's why I do it myself. I think of collecting as a way to show that I understand what's important better than others do.
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No one who looks at my paintings can see whether a painting is upside down or not anymore. I've made or developed so many image models that some people have given up trying to keep track of me. But others have only one or two ways of doing things and are successful with that.
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Most of arts what comes from the States to Europe has something to do with entertainment. I can't imagine artists in the United States having the same kind of isolated position that we have here in Europe. I have a feeling one lives more publically in the States.
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As a human being, I am a citizen, but as an artist, I am asocial.
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A citizen sticks to conventions, does whatever is social. Artists, of course, must reject all conventions. I see no differently in reconciling the best of both of these worlds.
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A painter doesn't need any talent. In fact, it's better not to have it.
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I don't like things that can be reproduced. Wood isn't important in itself but rather in the fact that objects made in it are unique, simple, unpretentious.
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As an artist, I have been a risk-taker. And I've done a lot of different things. I don't make it easy for people. Identification is difficult. One doesn't recognize my art right away.
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When I began as an artist, I already did not like expressionism, or abstract expressionism, because abstract painting had already been done. I did not want to belong to any one group or the other, and I'm not one or the other.
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I did not always trust my teachers, because I found them too weak. I was looking for something that could take me in a new direction, for things that I could admire. And because it was so hard to find this, I became a sort of outsider. That's why I began to identify with the insane, "outsider" artists.
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In Germany, we often hear the absurd complaint that museums don't have the money to buy paintings. Of course, I'm not talking about me and my paintings. There are, after all, more popular painters in this country.
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Asked what role he believes art plays in society, Baselitz replied, 'The same role as a good shoe, nothing more.
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I had always loved expressionist painting, like every European. In fact I admired it all the more because these were precisely the paintings despised by my father's generation.
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Spending money on art has always been frowned upon in this country - even earlier, when my and others' paintings cost almost nothing. Something is always more important. The people in charge are always peddling reasons that others seem to accept. Those who don't drink and aren't crazy, or who don't attract attention with how they behave in public, aren't noticed in art.
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I begin with an idea, but as I work, the picture takes over. Then there is the struggle between the idea I preconceived... and the picture that fights for its own life.
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Art is visceral and vulgar - it's an eruption.
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Despite all the taxes people pay, there supposedly isn't any money in this country for art. Of course, this makes an artist ask himself: "Well, then, what are you doing with the 100 million I pay each year? What happened to that money?" And he doesn't get an answer.
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I paint German artists whom I admire. I paint their pictures, their work as painters, and their portraits too. But oddly enough, each of these portraits ends up as a picture of a woman with blonde hair. I myself have never been able to work out why this happens.
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Talent seduces us into interpretation. My sister could draw wonderfully, but she would never have hit upon the idea of becoming a painter. I never had that extreme talent.
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I remember that Michael Werner told me about a famous collector, and Michael set up an appointment for us to meet. This man looked around the room and at my pictures. Then he said, "Young man, why are you doing these horrible things? Look out the window. There are nice girls out there. It's springtime. Look at how beautiful the world can be. You'll ruin your health by smoking so much and doing such tortured things."
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I dont want to create a monster; I want to make something which is new, exceptional, something that only I do...something that references tradition, but is still new.
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In the beginning, the energy involved to create came from my reaction to the work of other artists. The force behind this was aggression. The art that I saw was great, but I had to reject it, because I could not continue in the same direction. So I had to do something entirely different. It had to be so different, so extreme, that those who loved pop art, for instance, hated me. And this was my strength.
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I think the defect actually lies with male artists. Male artists often border on idiocy, while it's important for a woman not to be that way, if possible. Women are outstanding in science, just as good as men.
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I don't know who made up this sort of greatest-hits list for artists. If one artist isn't moving forward anymore, then it's assumed another one is going to take their place. With Francis Bacon's death, a whole genre of art died.
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I have always been aware of different movements and directions in art. But, in general, I'm always bored by any kind of generalization when it comes to artists. I think that there are just single individuals, who are valuable, and they work outside of any group.
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I've painted, but I've also done graphics since as long as I can remember. So even people with little to spend could afford it. But even the graphic works are only bought by those who buy the big, expensive paintings. I think that's troublesome.
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All German painters have a neurosis with Germany's past: war, the postwar period most of all, East Germany. I addressed all of this in a deep depression and under great pressure. My paintings are battles, if you will.
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There's a market for art, and things are indeed going swimmingly, especially for German artists. But everything takes place in America and in London, where there are quite a few wealthy, engaged people. What motivates them to buy art is a different question, but they do.
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