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Germany divided Baselitz and his generation
Recently I stumbled upon a great collection full of post war prints, paintings, drawings and collages. ‘Germany divided Baselitz and his generation’ is a generous dose of neo-expressionist art and the collection itself acts as a record of the social attitudes and split ideologies of East and West Germany after the Second World War.
The works, from 6 different artists including Georg Baselitz, denote the experiences of being a citizen in East and West Germany and growing up during the aftermath of the war. Trained in the East and then developing careers in the West, the works of these artists provide an interesting insight into German life as a whole when the country was physically and politically divided.
The works were varied and with different techniques and media and one of my favourite pieces were Blinky Palermo’s drawings. As a lot of his work was temporary, Palermo recorded a lot of his sculptures and wall paintings through drawing and I think these sketches are fantastic.
Another piece I liked was Gerhard Richter’s ‘Atlas’ sheets. Richter had collected and captured images of the sky and landscape and organized them neatly on a page for his personal archive he named ‘Atlas’. His paintings were based from these collages and played on the idea of personal and public memory.
The exhibition is a collected record and examination of post-war Germany and as some of the works are drawings, records and works in progress there is a real sense of an artist trying to understand the recent history of their country.
It is a fantastic exhibition and I would recommend visiting if you are interested in post-war art and creative processes.
‘Germany divided Baselitz and his generation’ is open until 31st August at the British Museum.
The British Museum
Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury, London WC1B 3DG