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拍品專文
More than two metres in height, Elke Rayskizeit (2018) is a mature, affectionate example of one of George Baselitz’s most important subjects: his wife, Elke, here represented as a medley of tactile colour. The work’s title alludes to Ferdinand von Rayski, a nineteenth-century German artist whose work Baselitz frequently encountered in his youth. Some of his earliest works were imaginary portraits of von Rayski, based on reproductions seen in books and painted in a Tachiste style. Von Rayski’s forest painting Wermsdorfer Wald (circa 1859), which Baselitz had known since his schooldays, was the model for his first upside-down painting Der Wald auf dem Kopf (1969, Museum Ludwig, Cologne). He has used this strategy since as a way of liberating his pictures from any associated meaning or symbolism, historical or otherwise.
Baselitz and Elke met in 1958 when they were both art students, and they married in 1962. Several years would pass before he painted her portrait; since the completion of Portrait of Elke I (1969, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), she has become a mainstay of his oeuvre. He has depicted her seated, clothed, nude, disguised, in oil paint and ink, and, unsurprisingly, upside-down. But this extended series does not function as a document in time. Rather than trying to capture his wife and her evolving expressions over the years, Baselitz returns to her face and body because their familiarity allows him to contend with the pure act of painting rather than the person at hand. ‘In Georg’s paintings, the subject doesn’t always matter,’ observed Elke. ‘What is important is the painting itself’ (E. Baselitz quoted in M. Auping, ‘Georg Baselitz: Portraits of Elke’, in ‘George Baselitz: Portraits of Elke, exh. cat. Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas 1997, p. 12).
The subtitle of the present work, which translates to ‘Rayski time’, suggests that the painting has much to do with the past: indeed, it appears to allude to Baselitz’s early Tachiste visions of von Rayski. As the artist has cast his eye back through his long career, recent years have seen him repeatedly engage with his previous canvases, ransacking his own history in a decidedly postmodern gesture. Many of his late works have been described as ‘remixes’ since they remake and reconceive images from his earlier oeuvre. In doing so, Baselitz both ‘abolishes and preserves’ a past iconography (S. Madoff, ‘Late Body’, in Baselitz, exh. cat. Fondation Beyeler, Basel 2018, p. 216).
The monumental surface of Elke Rayskizeit is richly textured, with expressive passages of lustrous teal, mauve, rose pink, and vivid blue, all glowing brightly against a stark white ground. Traces of the artist’s footprints can be seen towards the upper right. Its animated, impasto brushwork recalls paintings by the Abstract Expressionists, particularly those of Willem de Kooning. Baselitz first encountered works from the New York School in 1958 when, as a twenty-year-old art student, he saw an exhibition of contemporary American paintings. ‘Until then I had lived first under the Nazis, and then in the GDR,’ he said. ‘Modern art just did not occur … And suddenly here was abstract expressionism. Paintings by Pollock, de Kooning, Guston, Still and many others, in the very buildings where I took classes every day. It was overwhelming’ (G. Baselitz quoted in N. Wroe, ‘Georg Baselitz: “Am I supposed to be friendly?”’, The Guardian, 14 February 2014). For Baselitz, the exhibition catalysed an entirely new approach, one which stayed with him throughout his career and whose effects resound in the present work. Indeed, touching on von Rayski, de Kooning and Baselitz’s own history, Elke Rayskizeit moves both forwards and backwards in time.
Baselitz and Elke met in 1958 when they were both art students, and they married in 1962. Several years would pass before he painted her portrait; since the completion of Portrait of Elke I (1969, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), she has become a mainstay of his oeuvre. He has depicted her seated, clothed, nude, disguised, in oil paint and ink, and, unsurprisingly, upside-down. But this extended series does not function as a document in time. Rather than trying to capture his wife and her evolving expressions over the years, Baselitz returns to her face and body because their familiarity allows him to contend with the pure act of painting rather than the person at hand. ‘In Georg’s paintings, the subject doesn’t always matter,’ observed Elke. ‘What is important is the painting itself’ (E. Baselitz quoted in M. Auping, ‘Georg Baselitz: Portraits of Elke’, in ‘George Baselitz: Portraits of Elke, exh. cat. Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas 1997, p. 12).
The subtitle of the present work, which translates to ‘Rayski time’, suggests that the painting has much to do with the past: indeed, it appears to allude to Baselitz’s early Tachiste visions of von Rayski. As the artist has cast his eye back through his long career, recent years have seen him repeatedly engage with his previous canvases, ransacking his own history in a decidedly postmodern gesture. Many of his late works have been described as ‘remixes’ since they remake and reconceive images from his earlier oeuvre. In doing so, Baselitz both ‘abolishes and preserves’ a past iconography (S. Madoff, ‘Late Body’, in Baselitz, exh. cat. Fondation Beyeler, Basel 2018, p. 216).
The monumental surface of Elke Rayskizeit is richly textured, with expressive passages of lustrous teal, mauve, rose pink, and vivid blue, all glowing brightly against a stark white ground. Traces of the artist’s footprints can be seen towards the upper right. Its animated, impasto brushwork recalls paintings by the Abstract Expressionists, particularly those of Willem de Kooning. Baselitz first encountered works from the New York School in 1958 when, as a twenty-year-old art student, he saw an exhibition of contemporary American paintings. ‘Until then I had lived first under the Nazis, and then in the GDR,’ he said. ‘Modern art just did not occur … And suddenly here was abstract expressionism. Paintings by Pollock, de Kooning, Guston, Still and many others, in the very buildings where I took classes every day. It was overwhelming’ (G. Baselitz quoted in N. Wroe, ‘Georg Baselitz: “Am I supposed to be friendly?”’, The Guardian, 14 February 2014). For Baselitz, the exhibition catalysed an entirely new approach, one which stayed with him throughout his career and whose effects resound in the present work. Indeed, touching on von Rayski, de Kooning and Baselitz’s own history, Elke Rayskizeit moves both forwards and backwards in time.