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The idea of changing or improving the world is alien to me and seems ludicrous. Society functions, and always has, without the artist. No artist has ever changed anything for better or worse.

Georg Baselitz

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Georg Baselitz
Age: 86
Born: 1938
Born: January 23
Graphic Artist
Illustrator
Painter
Printmaker
Sculptor
University Teacher
Hans-Georg Kern
Georg Dern
G. Baselitz
Hans-Georg Baselitz
Georg Kern
Hans Georg Kern
Change
Changing
Anything
Worse
Ideas
Function
Better
Changed
Ludicrous
Ever
Society
Alien
Without
Idea
Functions
Always
Artist
Improving
World
Seems
Aliens

More quotes by Georg Baselitz

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There's a market for art, and things are indeed going swimmingly, especially for German artists. But everything takes place in America and in London, where there are quite a few wealthy, engaged people. What motivates them to buy art is a different question, but they do.
Georg Baselitz
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Most of arts what comes from the States to Europe has something to do with entertainment. I can't imagine artists in the United States having the same kind of isolated position that we have here in Europe. I have a feeling one lives more publically in the States.
Georg Baselitz
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I don't know who made up this sort of greatest-hits list for artists. If one artist isn't moving forward anymore, then it's assumed another one is going to take their place. With Francis Bacon's death, a whole genre of art died.
Georg Baselitz
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Art is visceral and vulgar - it's an eruption.
Georg Baselitz
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Women don't paint very well. It's a fact. There are, of course, exceptions. Agnes Martin or, from the past, Paula Modersohn-Becker.
Georg Baselitz
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I became an artist because of the possibility it gave me to develop in another way, because I didn't want to follow the same lines the others around me did. I was educated in the former German Democratic Republic, which meant that an individual figure had to be... like a soldier in the army.
Georg Baselitz
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A citizen sticks to conventions, does whatever is social. Artists, of course, must reject all conventions. I see no differently in reconciling the best of both of these worlds.
Georg Baselitz
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I paint German artists whom I admire. I paint their pictures, their work as painters, and their portraits too. But oddly enough, each of these portraits ends up as a picture of a woman with blonde hair. I myself have never been able to work out why this happens.
Georg Baselitz
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Talent seduces us into interpretation. My sister could draw wonderfully, but she would never have hit upon the idea of becoming a painter. I never had that extreme talent.
Georg Baselitz
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I don't see art as entertainment.
Georg Baselitz
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I hang my work upside down to emphasize surface.
Georg Baselitz
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An object painted upside down is suitable for painting because it is unsuitable as an object.
Georg Baselitz
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As an artist, I have been a risk-taker. And I've done a lot of different things. I don't make it easy for people. Identification is difficult. One doesn't recognize my art right away.
Georg Baselitz
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Asked what role he believes art plays in society, Baselitz replied, 'The same role as a good shoe, nothing more.
Georg Baselitz
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A painter doesn't need any talent. In fact, it's better not to have it.
Georg Baselitz
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There is no communication with any public whatsoever. The artist can ask no question, and he makes no statement he offers no information, and his work cannot be used. It is the end product which counts.
Georg Baselitz
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The artist is not responsible to any one. His social role is asocial... his only responsibility consists in an attitude to the work he does.
Georg Baselitz
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In a place like the Guggenheim, I would like to be a representative of arte povera. This would be my ideal.
Georg Baselitz
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You dig in and you find something.
Georg Baselitz
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We have seen so many exhibits in recent years where the exhibition design was aesthetically beautiful. In this case, if someone wants to get something out of the exhibit, they must neglect the aesthetics and look at my pictures.
Georg Baselitz