Georg Baselitz: Eroi d’Oro

Fondazione Giorgio Cini presents “Georg Baselitz. Eroi d’Oro”, curated by Luca Massimo Barbero and organised in partnership with Thaddaeus Ropac Gallery. The exhibition brings together a recent series of large-scale paintings by Georg Baselitz, centred on figures set against gold grounds that reject illusionistic depth and evoke medieval icons and the gilded backgrounds of Northern Renaissance painting.

Across these works, bodies rendered in sharp lines appear suspended on the surface, including self-portraits and repeated depictions of the artist’s wife, Elke. Executed in diluted black paint resembling ink, the portraits recall Hokusai and Japanese calligraphy, while in several canvases thick, viscous brushstrokes introduce marbled and variegated effects. The exhibition highlights the role of gold within Baselitz’s practice and its unusually direct relation here to the language of icon painting.