Baselitz Remix
The title says it all in Georg Baselitz's “Remix” series. In 2005, he began to examine his oeuvre, revisiting and remixing earlier pieces. He drew on past compositions using photographs and catalogs for their relaunch, placing his provocative works back in the limelight. Painted quickly, enlarged, in transparent and bright colors, and featuring expansive, meandering lines and shapes, this series of remix paintings can be seen as radical transformations or metamorphoses. Baselitz executes the works with spontaneity and speed, allowing moments from the past, present, and future to flash before the viewer and flow directly onto the canvas. In this series, Baselitz leaves behind the earthy tones that still dominated the “Heroes” series and turns to a brighter, clearer, but also cooler color palette. In addition, the white of the canvas comes more to the fore to suggest a negation of space and to place the figures outside the narrative. Moreover, the figures are painted with agile, energetic brushstrokes to convey a sense of absolute movement. Baselitz's typical brushwork remains instantly recognizable.

Baselitz vs. Art History
The 2007 work “Sujet point” is an essential piece from the celebrated series that Baselitz had begun just two years earlier. With this remix, the artist created a new type of work that addresses questions of permanence and change, originality, and our relationship to history. Like echoes from a bygone era, Baselitz invokes these works and brings them back to life. The references or echoes for “Sujet point” are his two provocative works “Frisch verliebt - M.D. Melodie” (1999, Museum Würth, Künzelsau) and “Im Walde von Blainville” (2000, private collection). As Baselitz put it, Marcel Duchamp (born in Blainville in 1887, died in 1968) is the protagonist of both works or even the antagonist. With his Readymades, Duchamp is regarded as the founder of Conceptual Art, a movement that declared painting obsolete. As such, he is entirely unacceptable to Georg Baselitz's understanding of art. In these earlier works, Baselitz condemns Duchamp, known for his rich love life, even at an old age, to live forever in the medium he had declared dead. Baselitz cannot relinquish his feud with Duchamp, revisiting it in “Sujet point.” However, the couple in an intimate embrace is not only an unmistakably erotic motif but also humorous. Baselitz ridicules the motif through the colorful palette in combination with the yellow and pink dot pattern in the background, almost taunting it and evoking a clownesque tone. However, Duchamp is not the only reference that can be identified here. The quick, graphic brushstrokes also draw connections to the erotic drawings in the “Suite Vollard” by an aging Pablo Picasso. At the same time, the dot pattern in the background evokes associations with the grid patterns found in the works of the constructivist Piet Mondrian (1872–1944) or the purple-speckled wallpaper in works by the great self-portraitist Edvard Munch (1863-1944).
Works from the “Remix” series, particularly our work “Sujet point,” should be understood as complex building blocks in Georg Baselitz's oeuvre. Remixing older compositions and incorporating old and new references, he does not simply recreate old works but connects them to the present, thus simultaneously questioning the past. [AW]