Large Head 1966

Curator: It is a stark print. Editor: Georg Baselitz’s “Large Head,” created in 1966. It’s a woodcut print, and I’m immediately struck by its rough, almost violent quality. There’s something unsettling about the distortion of the face and the harsh lines. What can you tell me about it? Curator: Note the date of this work, 1966. Germany was still reeling from the aftermath of WWII. The physical act of carving into the wood block – a material rooted in nature yet also industrialized – is, in my opinion, critical here. Do you see a connection? Editor: I hadn’t thought about it like that. So, the choice of wood as a medium, the manual labor of carving it, connects to a broader historical context of postwar trauma and the struggle to rebuild a society? It almost sounds like a metaphor for deconstruction? Curator: Exactly! Baselitz deliberately rejected the slickness of mass-produced images. The very act of production, the artist’s hand wrestling with the material, is visible and palpable. This wasn’t meant to be beautiful; it was meant to be… something else. Editor: The lines, the dark inks. There’s nothing soft or forgiving here. It’s as though the materials themselves are resisting the creation of a conventional, pleasing image. Curator: And it is through this resistance that a different kind of beauty emerges. A beauty born of struggle, of process. What can art be, and what is it made of. These are open ended questions for you to ask yourself, always. Editor: So, the medium and process become integral to understanding the work’s message, its commentary on post-war German society and beyond? I find myself contemplating about material as the fundamental part of every art making decision. Curator: Precisely. It challenges us to think critically about consumption, the very nature of making, and challenges conventional aesthetics by imbuing materials themselves with potent meaning. That, to me, is its enduring power.