North Carolina Museum of Art

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HIGHLIGHTS

20th-Century Collection

1950–2000

Georg Baselitz (German, born 1938)

Male Nude, 1975
Oil and charcoal on canvas, 78 3/4 x 63 3/4 in. (200 x 161.9 cm)
Purchased with funds from the North Carolina Art Society (Robert F. Phifer Bequest), 97.4
© Georg Baselitz 1998

Why is this figure upside down?

Georg Baselitz explores the interface between representational and abstract art. He deliberately inverts his images in order to compel himself, and the viewer, to focus on the purely abstract aspects of the composition. Upended, the subject loses much of its usual meaning. As a result the artist is able to exploit the tension between abstraction and representation. The viewer may choose to concentrate on the expressive brushwork, vibrant colors and bold forms of the painting but always remains aware of the unsettling presence of the human figure.

Male Nude, based on the studio practice of sketching from a live model as well as the tradition of self-portraiture, is the work of a passionate, intuitive and wildly inventive painter. The image seems almost hacked into being: paint is brushed, scratched, scraped and smeared with the fingers. What results is not a pretty picture but a haunting, even poignant, image of a human being alone and naked in the late 20th century.

"An object painted upside down is suitable for painting because it is unsuitable as an object."
—Georg Baselitz