Baselitz – Academy
Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice
8 May – 8 September 2019
With a major retrospective, Georg Baselitz is the first living artist to exhibit at the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice. Curated by Kosme de Barañano, Baselitz – Academy examines the artist’s work in relation to the Italian art historical tradition and the legacy of the academy.
As a young artist, Georg Baselitz left Germany for Italy after winning a six-month residency at the Villa Romana in Florence. During this pivotal time, he turned his gaze intensely to the art of the Italian Renaissance, including that of Giovanni di Paolo, Rosso Fiorentino, and Jacopo da Pontormo.
Acutely aware of the arc of art history, Georg Baselitz has returned over and again to the artists of the past. This exhibition highlights this interest while turning attention to his remarkable influence on contemporary painting, including his iconic inversions, which deconstruct the traditions of portraiture.
Seven rooms are dedicated to Georg Baselitz’s paintings, drawings, prints, and sculptures. The show is divided into sections focusing on themes such as drawings inspired by Pontormo, the “upside-down” portraits, and the impressive large nudes. In a radical and revelatory presentation, the room of nudes exhibits exceptional works that have never before been seen together.
Georg Baselitz comments: “I am delighted to have been invited to present my work at the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice. I have known the city and museum well for many years and it is a pleasure to work with Kosme de Barañano to present a show that we hope will offer something different.”Kosme de Barañano, curator of the exhibition, comments: “Georg Baselitz is one of the most significant artists of the second half of the twentieth century. He confronts the great theme of painting not by reducing it to its essence but rather by attacking the convention itself. We are thrilled to work together again. Baselitz has often visited Italy and has kept a studio in the country for quite some time, and the exhibition will reflect how Italy has impacted his work over the years.”Paola Marini, former Director of the Gallerie dell’Accademia, comments: “After the success of the Philip Guston exhibition in 2017, we are pleased to continue the journey by presenting the work of a contemporary master, Georg Baselitz, whose work has been profoundly influenced by the encounter with the history of Italian art present at the Gallerie dell’Accademia.”Giovanni Panebianco, General Secretary of MiBAC and Director of Gallerie dell’Accademia, comments: “This exhibition significantly testifies to the Gallerie dell’Accademia’s commitment to carry on a project of dialogue with the contemporary art milieu, a path started some years ago. The exhibition indeed is a tribute to Georg Baselitz, one of the most innovative and influential artists of the last fifty years. Baselitz is intimately connected with the city of Venice, where he more than once presented his artworks during the Biennale Arte, starting from the 1980 edition when he participated with his first challenging, deeply original sculpture.”
Published by Gagosian, 2019
Texts by Georg Baselitz, Kosme de Barañano, Paola Marini, Michele Tavola
Hardcover - 10 1/2 × 13 inches - 26.7 × 33 cm -288 pages - English
ISBN: 978-0-8478-6741-7
Baselitz – Academy, promoted by Gallerie dell’Accademia and supported by Gagosian, is a Collateral Event of the 58th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue.
Georg Baselitz
Baselitz was born in 1938 in Deutschbaselitz, Germany, and lives between Austria, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland. He has exhibited extensively internationally, including highly acclaimed exhibitions at the Fondation Beyeler and the Kunstmuseum in Basel. Collections include the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany; Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main, Germany; Fondation Beyeler, Basel; and Tate, London. Recent institutional exhibitions include Pinturas Recentes, Pinacoteca, São Paulo (2010–11); Baselitz sculpteur, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (2011–12); Back then, in between, and today, Haus der Kunst, Munich (2014–15); 56th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia (2015); How it began..., State Russian Museum, Saint Petersburg (2015); The Heroes, Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main, Germany (2016, traveled to Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome; and Guggenheim Bilbao, Spain, through 2017); Preview with Review, Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest (2017); Baselitz Maniera: Nonconformism as a Source of Imagination, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden, Germany (2018); Works on Paper, Kunstmuseum Basel (2018); and Georg Baselitz / Six Decades, Fondation Beyeler, Basel (2018, traveled to the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC); Corpus Baselitz, Musée Unterlinden, Colmar, France (2018).
Kosme de Barañano
Internationally respected art historian and curator, Kosme de Barañano is a full tenured Professor of Art History at Miguel Hernández University of Elche, Spain. Previously he was a professor at University of the Basque Country, Spain; IUAV University of Venice; and Humboldt University, Berlin. A former Executive Director of Institut Valencià d’Art Modern (IVAM), Spain, and former Deputy Director of Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, de Barañano holds a PhD in Art History from the University of Deusto, Bilbao, Spain. He has authored numerous books and essays on a wide range of subjects, from Pontormo and Max Beckmann to Alberto Giacometti and Eduardo Chillida.
Gallerie dell’Accademia
Campo della Carità, Dorsoduro 1050, 30123 Venezia
