MY MAGICAL ATTIC: GEORG BASELITZ & EMILIO VEDOVA AT GALERI THADDAEUS ROPAC

GEORG BASELITZ & EMILIO VEDOVA AT GALERIE THADDAEUS ROPAC

SALZBURG VILLA KAST

May 23, 2015 – July 11, 2015

GEORG BASELITZ & EMILIO VEDOVA AT GALERIE THADDAEUS ROPAC

SALZBURG VILLA KAST

May 23, 2015 – July 11, 2015

It is with great pleasure that we announce the collaboration between the Fondazione Emilio e Annabianca Vedova and the Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac. Our first joint project will be a double exhibition combining a new series of works by Georg Baselitz with works from the 1980s by Emilio Vedova.

The Venetian painter Emilio Vedova (1919-2006) was one of the most prominent representatives of Italian informel. He first took part in the Venice Biennale in 1947, and devoted his whole life to the development of non-representational painting. Works by Vedova were shown at exhibitions including the legendary documenta exhibitions I, II and III (1955, 59 and 64) in Kassel. By the end of the 1950s, Vedova had become established in the international art scene as a classic of abstract painting.

From the beginning of the 1980s, Vedova became an important integrative figure for an up-and-coming generation of neo-expressive artists – as was demonstrated in 1982 by his renewed participation in documenta (7), as well as by many publications and solo exhibitions in the ensuing years.

"The central contrast between the two non-colours black and white is a decisive characteristic of Vedova's œuvre [...]. This polarisation, later often complemented by a further strong colour such as red or blue, complies with an inherent wish for clarity of expression, and prevents blurring into diverse nuances. Moreover, the black levels enhance the intensity of the overall effect, defining the formal orientation, which might otherwise easily be obscured by colour values" (Carla Schulz-Hoffmann, 1986). In this context, the contrast with American-style Abstract Expressionism is interesting: while Jackson Pollock, for instance, introduced in his Drippings a neutralising element, so that the work in its overall structure could be continued indefinitely, Vedova remains at the centre of the picture, the dimensions of which are always accessible to him, in keeping with the size of his own body. Characteristic of Vedova's painting is l’ubiquità del centro, the omnipresent centre.

This concentration on the centre is also an important aspect of Georg Baselitz's new series Ma grigio. "Each picture shows two pairs of legs, vaguely suggested in blurred shades of grey on a black ground, attempting a wild but spasmodic dance. They are cut off above the calves, and the feet are in high-heeled shoes. This 'windmill commotion', alternating between cheerful exuberance and expressionless staccato, is abruptly stopped, since the edges of the pictures prevent uninterrupted rotation. Here Baselitz pushes the abstraction of the figurative to a new level. If previously, despite alterations, the unity of the figure was to a certain extent retained, here it has become obsolete. It can no longer be made to fit a definable form with some relation to reality; the individual parts become ciphers for a purely notional idea. The centre of the picture, where the legs would have to collide, remains vague, sometimes lightly

covered by pale grey, runny streaks of paint, sometimes appearing like a dark opening" (Carla Schulz-Hoffmann, 2015).

Baselitz’s unusual chain of association for this series ranges from Lucio Fontana's Attese pictures dating from the 1950s and '60s, through Gustave Courbet's provocative painting L'Origine du monde (1866), right up to the Mexican dancers and Frida Kahlo. On the other hand, this series is based on Baselitz's intensive reflection on the "problem of the empty centre" in scenes of the Annunciation from past centuries.

The foot, the dominant (and isolated) element in the new series, has been a leitmotiv in Baselitz's work since the 1960s. The disembodied feet reminiscent of Théodore Géricault, the feet crammed into tiny shoes in the New Types, Edvard Munch's feet in the series Spaziergang ohne Stock [Walking without a stick], the huge cowboy boots, the high heels of the recent monumental wood and bronze sculptures, and so on. "Feet are my earth wire. For me the earth connection is more important than the transmission. For me the reception via an earth wire is much better than through an antenna – perhaps I've got more in common with the trolls than the angels, who knows? Funnily enough, I also paint crouched down; I walk across the paintings" (Georg Baselitz, 2006).

Baselitz and Vedova first met in Berlin in the early 1960s. At that time, Vedova had received a grant from the DAAD [German Academic Exchange Service] and was working on his 7-part installation Absurd Berlin Diary, in line with Dadaist examples. Baselitz and Vedova shared not only a long-standing, intensive friendship, but also appreciation of each other's artistic approach. Baselitz had already purchased a work by Vedova in 1957, through the Galerie Springer, which represented both artists and held Vedova's first solo exhibition in Berlin that year. Baselitz recounts: "I bought a picture by Emilio, his Universal Manifesto (1957) [...] as a document, my first view through the west window in Berlin, an abstract […] and all the heart could desire. With regard to this picture, people kept telling me Franz Kline was better – but he isn't! [...] Emilio loved ambushes, he was a partisan, he loved the revolution, the grand gesture, Expressionism, and me. But I'm not an Expressionist, and I despise the revolution; at best, we can produce paintings, maybe even some good ones. " (Georg Baselitz, 2007). After Vedova's death in 2006, Baselitz made a series of black-and-white tributes to Emilio Vedova (Omaggio a Vedova), first shown in the Venice Pavilion at the 2007 Biennale, in combination with three dimensional works by Vedova. This was the origin of the idea for the Salzburg project. In 2008, the Berlinische Galerie also held an exhibition of works by both artists.

Emilio Vedova had a special relationship with the town of Salzburg. Every year from 1965 to 69 he directed master classes in painting at the Salzburg International Summer Academy, and during this period he also influenced the cultural life of the town. In 1988, the Künstlerhaus held a solo exhibition of his work, which attracted widespread notice. A book with an essay by Carla Schulz-Hoffmann will accompany the exhibition.

http://ropac.net/exhibition/georg-baselitz-emilio-vedova

You may visit Georg Baselit: Magician of colours comprehensive news to click below link from my blog.

http://mymagicalattic.blogspot.com.tr/2015/11/georg-baselitz-magician-of-colours.html

EMILIO VEDOVA

DAGEGEN… ’82 - 1982

Water Paint, Pastel Colour, Nitro Laquer & Sand on Canvas

Dimensions: 210 x 290 cm

Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris/Salzburg © Fondazione Emilio e Annabianca Vedova

EMILIO VEDOVA

DAGEGEN… ’82 - 1982 (DETAIL)

EMILIO VEDOVA

DI UMANO '84 - IV, 1984

Paint on Canvas

Dimensions: 235 × 235 cm

Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris/Salzburg © Fondazione Emilio e Annabianca Vedova

Installation View: Georg Baselitz & Emilio Vedova, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac Salzburg,

Photograph: Ulrich Ghezzi

EMILIO VEDOVA

...ALS OB... '83 - 6, 1983

Oil, Charcoal and Sand on Canvas,

Dimensions: 235 x 235 cm

Courtesy Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris/Salzburg © Fondazione Emilio e

Annabianca Vedova, Photo: Mussat Sartor

EMILIO VEDOVA

OLTRE – 10 ( CICLO I - 1985 ), 1985

Emulsion Paint, Pastel, Sand and Iron Oxide Powder on Canvas

Dimensions: 280 × 280 cm

Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris/Salzburg © Fondazione Emilio e Annabianca Vedova

Installation View: Georg Baselitz & Emilio Vedova, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac Salzburg,

Photograph: Ulrich Ghezzi

EMILIO VEDOVA

OLTRE - 3 ( CICLO I – 1985 ) 1985

Paint on Canvas

Dimensions: 280 x 280 cm

Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris/Salzburg © Fondazione Emilio e

Annabianca Vedova, Photo: Mussat Sartor

EMILIO VEDOVA

ROSSO 84’ - 1984

Paint on Canvas

Dimensions: 235 x 235 cm

Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris/Salzburg © Fondazione Emilio e

Annabianca Vedova Photo: Bruno Zanon

Installation View: Georg Baselitz & Emilio Vedova, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac Salzburg,

Photograph: Ulrich Ghezzi

EMILIO VEDOVA

DA DOVE ( 1983 – II ) 1983

Paint on Canvas

Dimensions: 230 x 300 cm

Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris/Salzburg © Fondazione Emilio e Annabianca Vedova

GALERI THADDAEUS ROPAC

SALZBURG VILLA KAST

GALERI THADDAEUS ROPAC

SALZBURG VILLA KAST

GEORG BASELITZ

LOUISE FULLER 2013

Bronze, Patinated, 837 kg

Dimensions: 351.5 x 135.5 x 130 cm

Courtesy Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris/Salzburg © Georg Baselitz

GEORG BASELITZ

FRANK KOMMT NACH HAUS 2014

Oil on Canvas

Dimensions: 300 × 207 cm

Courtesy Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris/Salzburg © Georg Baselitz

GEORG BASELITZ

BITTE HINTER DEN KOPF - 2014

Oil on Canvas

Dimensions: 300 × 207 cm

Courtesy Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris/Salzburg © Georg Baselitz

GEORG BASELITZ

MANTEL 2014

Oil on Canvas

Dimensions: 300 x 207 cm

Courtesy Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris/Salzburg © Georg Baselitz

GEORG BASELITZ

YELLOW SONG 2013 ( ED. of 6 )

Bronze

Dimensions: 309.5 x 148 x 93 cm

Courtesy Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris/Salzburg © Georg Baselitz

GEORG BASELITZ

UND SO VARMED LOCH 2013

Oil on Canvas

Dimensions: 300 x 250 cm

Courtesy Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris/Salzburg © Georg Baselitz

GEORG BASELITZ

VIOLA DA GAMBA, SUONA 2015

Oil on Canvas

Dimensions: 186 x 115 cm

Courtesy Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris/Salzburg © Georg Baselitz

Installation View: Georg Baselitz & Emilio Vedova, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac Salzburg,

Photograph: Ulrich Ghezzi

GEORG BASELITZ

ATTESE UN PELO DI BARBA, 2 PELI DI BARBA,

MA CHE BARBA DI VEDOVA, 2015 ( DETAIL )

GEORG BASELITZ

ATTESE UN PELO DI BARBA, 2 PELI DI BARBA, MA CHE BARBA DI VEDOVA, 2015

Oil on Canvas

Dimensions: 266 × 107 cm

Courtesy Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris/Salzburg © Georg Baselitz

Photo: Jochen Littkemann

GEORG BASELITZ

ATTESE UN PELO DI BARBA, 2 PELI DI BARBA,

MA CHE BARBA DI VEDOVA, 2015 ( DETAIL )

GEORG BASELITZ

II TEMPO SEMPRE BELLO, ANCHE BELLO UN CANO 2015

Oil on Canvas

Dimensions: 300 x 170 cm

Courtesy Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris/Salzburg © Georg Baselitz

GEORG BASELITZ

LA FUTURA CAMMIN FACENDO - 2015

Oil on Canvas

Dimensions: 205 × 150 cm

GEORG BASELITZ

OHNE TITEL 2015

Ink onPaper

Dimensions: 66 x 51 cm

GEORG BASELITZ

VIVA LE PIRAMIDI 2015

Oil on Canvas

Dimensions: 200 x 106 cm

GEORG BASELITZ

OHNE TITEL 2015

Ink on Paper

Dimensions: 65,8 x 51 cm

Photo: Jochen Littkemann

GEORG BASELITZ

MOND 1989-2014

Bronze

Dimensions: 46 x 51,5 x 11 cm

GEORG BASELITZ’ WORDS

‘’ I’m a painter who always needs to see something in the near the centre of a picture. – whether it’s a portrait or just a nose or a hook.

When you look through all my pictures, you can see that I concentrate on the central motif. I know this and I don’t object, but sometimes I think: that’s odd. Does it have to be?

Suddenly it came to me that I don’t make perforations or dark spots, but just the ‘’ windmill commotion ‘’ of the feet. Then a picture consists only of its limits, its outer edges, and no longer of the motif in the centre. It is actually an idea that’s perhaps largely explained through the title, but not through the motif.

This is why all these pictures are so monochrome. There are only women’s legs, women’s feet, that are often unconnected.

I have to say, I always look around: first in my own biography: can you justify what you just did, which was a bit risky and quiet different before?

Do you now have to jump out of the window, or is it ok? –and second, are there comparisons in art history? –and I haven’t found any comparisons – so far. ‘’

Georg Baselitz

http://ropac.net/exhibition_video/georg-baselitz-emilio-vedova

GEORG BASELITZ

SOURCE: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

German painter, draughtsman, printmaker and sculptor. After attending grammar school in Kamenz, near Dresden, he began studying painting at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in East Berlin in 1956 but was expelled after one term because of ‘socio-political immaturity’. After moving to West Berlin in 1956, at which time he took a new surname reflecting his place of birth, he resumed his studies in 1957 at the Hochschule der Bildenden Künste in West Berlin; in 1961 he became a post-graduate student under Hann Trier, completing his studies in 1962. He became interested in literature and in the theoretical writings of painters such as Kandinsky, Malevich and Ernst Wilhelm Nay. His intensive reading of the works of Friedrich Nietzsche, Charles Baudelaire, the Comte de Lautréamont, Antonin Artaud, Stefan George, Gottfried Benn and Samuel Beckett had a great influence on his early work.

After moving to West Berlin Baselitz became closely associated with two other painters from East Germany, A. R. Penck and especially Eugen Schönebeck, with whom he held his first exhibition in 1961. Together he and Schönebeck published a manifesto entitled Pandämonium on this occasion, followed by a second version in 1962 in connection with another joint exhibition. Even in his early work of the late 1950s and early 1960s Baselitz rebelled against the dominance of abstract painting, proposing in its place a very personal, expressive figurative art rooted in the art brut and psychotic art produced by the mentally ill and others at odds with society. The imagery in these early works, symbolic of the body and its organs and of sexual obsessions, borders on the traumatic. The most important picture of this phase of his development, The Great Piss-up (oil on canvas, 2.5×1.8 m, 1962-3; Cologne, Mus. Ludwig), was confiscated as immoral when it was first exhibited in West Berlin in 1963; it shows a naked man holding an exaggeratedly large penis, with another nude figure doubled over on the floor behind him.

In 1965 Baselitz was awarded a scholarship for a year’s residential study at the Villa Romana in Florence. In 1966 he moved from Berlin to Osthofen, near Worms, and from there in 1971 to Forst an der Weinstrasse. From the mid-1960s he concentrated on several figure types—‘heroes’, ‘rebels’ and ‘shepherds’—sometimes portrayed as scarred or wounded but presented in a stylized form as modern heroes, as people from a mythical land beyond our questionable civilization. These complete pictures, rich in their spiritual and historical overtones, culminated in the Great Friends (oil on canvas, 2.5×3.0 m, 1965; Vienna, Mus. 20. Jhts), in which two standing figures, larger than life, are shown against a black wilderness. They were followed by compositions in which the image was divided into strips shown side by side in different combinations as in Kullervo’s Feet (1.62×1.30 m, 1967; see London exh. cat., 1983–4, p. 39). Using this dismemberment of the subject as a first stage in the disruption of its legibility, Baselitz began to play down the importance of subject-matter and to emphasize in its place the underlying pictorial structure.

From 1969 Baselitz painted his subjects upside down, as in the Forest on its Head (2.5×1.9 m, 1969; Cologne, Mus. Ludwig), seeing in this method the possibility of stressing the realization of the motif as a painted surface and the form as his primary concern. While making use of elements familiar from his earlier pictures, he now made them subservient to the physical and pictorial properties of the medium itself, not only in paintings such as Elke Nude (1977; Eindhoven, Stedel. Van Abbemus.) but also in his drawings, etchings and woodcuts.

After moving in 1975 to Derneburg, near Hildesheim, Baselitz served as professor of painting at the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Karlsruhe (1977–82) and at the Hochschule der Bildenden Künste in West Berlin (1983–8); he divided his time during these years between Derneburg and Imperia on the Italian Riviera. Although he continued to present the medium itself as his primary vehicle of expression, in the 1980s he again gave greater weight to subject-matter, for example in variations on compositions by Munch or in reworkings of Christian iconography. Painter with Sailing Ship (Munch) (2.5×2.0 m, 1982; see London exh. cat., 1983–4, p. 17) is one of several portraits of Munch made at this time. In these reinterpretations, however, the densely worked surface and monumentality of form are even more marked than in his earlier work. This association of explosive iconography with a virtually abstract painterly technique is impressively brought to bear in the two paintings of 1983 dedicated to Die Brücke, the group of Expressionist painters based in Dresden in the early 20th century: Supper in Dresden (Zurich, Ksthaus) and the Brücke Choir (New York, Emily and Jerry Spiegel priv. col.).

In 1979 Baselitz began work on his first monumental sculptures in wood, for which he employed an elemental and deliberately unpolished technique that gave his figures and heads an archetypal forcefulness. One of the earliest of these, Model for a Sculpture (painted limewood, 1980; see London exh. cat., 1983–4, p. 17), exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 1980, represents a human torso as if rising from the block of wood resting on the ground. Like Kirchner before him, he exploited the directness and freedom from verisimilitude of African sculpture to arrive at an expressive power inextricably related to the laying bare of the methodical nature of the creative process. He continued to produce isolated examples of such sculptures at fairly long intervals while continuing to extend his range as a draughtsman and printmaker, for example in a series of monumental woodcuts such as Drinker / Head with Bottle (1000×785 mm, 1981; see Gohr, p. 150). Having worked for many years against the mainstream of contemporary art, by the 1980s he had established an international reputation through his influence on the young German Neo-Expressionist painters referred to in Germany as the ‘Neue Wilden’.

Andreas Franzke - From Grove Art Online

http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?criteria=O%3AAD%3AE%3A366&page_number=1&template_id=6&sort_order=1&displayall=1#skipToContent

EMILIO VEDOVA

Born in Venice into a family of workers and artisans, from the 1930s onwards Vedova began an intense activity as a self-taught artist, drawing figures and buildings. In 1942, the young Vedova joined the anti-Novecento movement known as “Corrente”.
An anti-Fascist, he worked for the Resistance from 1944 to 1945 and in 1946, he was one of the co-signers of the "Oltre Guernica" manifesto in Milan. In the same year in Venice he was one of the founders of the “Nuova Secessione Italiana” followed by the “Fronte Nuovo delle Arti”.
In 1948 he made his debut in the Venice Biennale, the first of many appearances in this event: in 1952 an entire room was devoted to his work, in 1960 he was awarded the Grand Prize for Painting and in 1997 the prestigious Golden Lion award for Lifetime Achievement.
In the early 1950s he created his celebrated cycles of works: “Scontro di situazioni” (Collision of Situations), “Ciclo della Protesta” (Protest Cycle), “Cicli della Natura” (Cycles of Nature). In 1954, at the second São Paolo Art Biennial he won a prize that would allow him to spend three months in Brazil, where he encountered an extreme, hard reality that would leave its mark on him. In 1961 he designed the sets and costumes for Luigi Nono’s “Intolleranza ‘60” (Intolerance ’60); in 1984 he would work with the composer again on “Prometeo”.
From 1961 onwards he worked on his “Plurimi” creating an initial Venetian series followed by works made from 1963 to 1964 in Berlin including the seven pieces forming the “Absurdes Berliner Tagebuch ‘64” (Absurd Berlin Diary ’64) presented at the 1964 Kassel Documenta where he also showed in 1955, 1959 and 1982. From 1965 to 1967 he worked on “Spazio/Plurimo/Luce” (Space/Plurimo/Light) for the Montreal EXPO.
He carried out intense teaching activities in various American universities followed by the Sommerakademie in Salzburg and the Academy of Venice. His artistic career was characterised by a constant desire to explore and innovate.
In the 1970s he created the “Plurimi Binari” in the “Lacerazione” (Laceration) and “Carnevali” (So-called carnivals) cycles followed by the vast cycles of “teleri” (big canvases) and his “Disks”, “Tondi”, “Oltre” (Beyond) and “…in continuum…” (...in continuum...) works. He won numerous prestigious prizes and awards. His last important solo exhibitions included the major retrospective held at Castello di Rivoli in 1998 and, after his death in 2006, the sister shows at Rome’s Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna and the Berlinische Galerie (Berlin).

http://www.fondazionevedova.org/en/emilio-vedova/essential-biography

You may read Emilio Vedova’s comprehensive biography to click below link of Emilio Vedova’s web paage.

http://www.fondazionevedova.org/en/emilio-vedova/biography/1919-1943

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June 18, 2015

GEORG BASELITZ & EMILIO VEDOVA AT GALERI THADDAEUS ROPAC