German artist Georg Baselitz has always been provocative, controversial, and contrary. Whether referring to German painting traditions as ugly, provoking censors with the sexual content of his work, or hanging his painting... more »s upside down, Bazelitz has always been uncompromising in his style and his ideas about art.
Filmmaker and art critic Heinz Peter Schwerfel offers a unique opportunity to examine the outspoken Baselitz at two different points in his life. In 1987, Schwerfel filmed the 50-year-old artist on the occasion of his retrospective at the Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn. Baselitz talks candidly about his youth, career, the lean years, and his success; 17 years later, Schwerfel makes a new film for a new Baselitz retrospective in which the painter views the original film and the filmmaker confronts him about his earlier statements. Calmer and more serene, an older Baselitz talks about the new themes of his later work and his new passion for African sculpture.« less