Adler, 1977

About the Work

An abstract-gestural composition with a reduced colour scheme - that is our first impression. Only at second glance does a huge eagle distorted almost to the point of being dissolved become visible. From 1969 onwards, Georg Baselitz began inverting the motifs of his paintings, thus taking to new levels the way he empties his subject matter. Whether commonplace or content-laden, he adapts the pictorial motif over and over again, as is the case with this eagle. Through this repetition he further invalidates the significance of the subject, which degenerates until it almost becomes a pretext for a celebration of painting.