Das Motiv ohne Inhalt

This book reconstructs the production of the large series of works by Georg Baselitz: Helden (1965–1966), the Fraktur paintings (1966–1968) and his so-called reversal in motif of the “standing on their head” paintings since 1969, viewed as the point zero of Baselitz and as a fundamental achievement in his visual thought. Formulating his art practice from this point, and, since he retains the tension between the seeing of objects and the autonomy of the image, he turns the entire painting into a stable “motif without content”. Baselitz’s work reveals his growing, slow awareness of the conditions and potential of one’s own painting while simultaneously displaying the sober visual and logical consequence with which the artist painted his “new picture” between 1959 and 1969, moving beyond the general confusion about “modern painting” and what it actually is.