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Lot Essay
This epic canvas is, as the title suggests, a return by Georg Baselitz to one of his greatest artistic triumphs. In 1962 his iconic painting Die grosse Nacht im Eimer (Big Night Down the Drain) caused a stir as the energetically executed figure flew in the face of the prevailing Abstract Expressionist movement to point to a return to figuration almost two decades after the figure was by-and-large abandoned as a proper subject for aspiring artists. In Baselitz' provocative 1962 painting, the small figure depicted in the act of making an obscene gesture and executed in the artist's characteristic loose brushwork was a radical innovation on the artist's part and this painting came to be one of the most highly regarded of his career and is now housed in the Museum Ludwig, Cologne. Beginning in the mid-2000s, Baselitz decided to return to these themes in a new series of paintings to try and further his visual explorations that had scandalized what he saw as the complacent art world of the time.
For this new group of paintings Baselitz adopted a technique from modern music-remixing. The result is a visual sampling of existing motifs from his oeuvre to produce something new. This practice of reprising successful themes has occurred throughout art history, as acknowledged masters such as Cézanne produced over one hundred images of his famous Bathers and Munch reprised his Girl on a Bridge on nearly two dozen occasions. In Drei Streifen Mantel (Remix), Baselitz celebrates the imposing stature of the single figure, but on this occasion has replaced his diminutive character with a larger, more dominating figure whose features bear a striking resemblance to Adolf Hitler. The tightly rendered features of the Fürher's face are in stark contrast to the more expressively rendered trio of colorful blocks that make up the figure's body (hence the title, which is loosely translated as 'three stripe coat'). Baselitz's Remix series re-interprets and refreshes one of the artist's most iconic forms-his fervid painting style imbuing even his most pastoral images with a renewed sense of immediacy, "By showing the once controversial phallic form more plainly and making the dwarf's face, with its haircut and moustache, more expressly resemble the physiognomy of Adolf Hitler, he robs the picture of its former disquieting power. The effect is flatter, exactly as if Baselitz longed for the scandal that cannot actually be repeated. The resemblance to Hitler gives the impression of coquetry. The historical trail has thinned. And the dirty colours of the picture have given way to a smooth brilliance" (J. Thorn-Prikker, Georg Baselitz: Remix. Mixed Feelings and Open Questions, www.goethe.de/kue/bku/kpa/en1921170.htm, accessed 8/14/2013).
For this new group of paintings Baselitz adopted a technique from modern music-remixing. The result is a visual sampling of existing motifs from his oeuvre to produce something new. This practice of reprising successful themes has occurred throughout art history, as acknowledged masters such as Cézanne produced over one hundred images of his famous Bathers and Munch reprised his Girl on a Bridge on nearly two dozen occasions. In Drei Streifen Mantel (Remix), Baselitz celebrates the imposing stature of the single figure, but on this occasion has replaced his diminutive character with a larger, more dominating figure whose features bear a striking resemblance to Adolf Hitler. The tightly rendered features of the Fürher's face are in stark contrast to the more expressively rendered trio of colorful blocks that make up the figure's body (hence the title, which is loosely translated as 'three stripe coat'). Baselitz's Remix series re-interprets and refreshes one of the artist's most iconic forms-his fervid painting style imbuing even his most pastoral images with a renewed sense of immediacy, "By showing the once controversial phallic form more plainly and making the dwarf's face, with its haircut and moustache, more expressly resemble the physiognomy of Adolf Hitler, he robs the picture of its former disquieting power. The effect is flatter, exactly as if Baselitz longed for the scandal that cannot actually be repeated. The resemblance to Hitler gives the impression of coquetry. The historical trail has thinned. And the dirty colours of the picture have given way to a smooth brilliance" (J. Thorn-Prikker, Georg Baselitz: Remix. Mixed Feelings and Open Questions, www.goethe.de/kue/bku/kpa/en1921170.htm, accessed 8/14/2013).