Exhibition Opens As Baselitz Turns 80
A retrospective of the work of Georg Baselitz opens at the Fondation Beyeler in Basel on 21 January, two days before the German artist turns 80. The show unites 80 paintings and 10 sculptures made between 1959 and 2017, plus upside-down images from the 1970s and 80s, as well as works that were scandalous in their time. Among these are Die Grosse Nacht im Eimer (Big Night Down the Drain, pictured), which depicts a man masturbating. It was seized from a West Berlin gallery by the public prosecutor in 1963. Also on show is Baselitz’s first painted wooden sculpture—a figure that appears to be posed in a Nazi salute—which caused outrage at the Venice Biennale in 1980.
