From the Front 1985

Curator: Georg Baselitz created this arresting print, titled "From the Front," in 1985, using linocut techniques. The piece currently resides here at Tate Britain. Editor: Wow, it hits you, doesn't it? All jagged edges and staring eyes, like a half-formed memory struggling to surface. It feels… raw. Curator: Baselitz was deeply invested in challenging traditional artistic conventions, and linocut lent itself to this. Note the contrast between the thick black lines and roughly hewn textures, symptomatic of Expressionist printmaking, but the inverted image further destabilizes the composition. Consider how the materiality itself—the cheapness and accessibility of linoleum—played into this rejection of elitism. Editor: Inverted, yes, that's key. It feels like the world is turned on its head, doesn't it? Gives you that dizzy feeling you get when things are deeply unsettling. It makes you question perspective, reality, all that heady stuff! But on a simpler level, I am wondering what is making this image for me—is it the colors? The shapes? Or the expression of the depicted figure? It makes you ponder on meaning, no? Curator: Precisely. Linocut allows for bold, graphic statements. In the post-war era, we see a wave of artists working with "poor" materials, repurposing cheap mediums to make important points about production and consumption; this image carries significant artistic value now, even if the base material, linoleum, is of little financial value in and of itself. Editor: So true. I get a visceral sense of…pain, almost. But maybe that’s too on-the-nose. Perhaps it's the awkward pose of the white hands or the way that face is broken, fractured—like a shattered mirror reflecting back something monstrous. I feel uneasy looking at it; perhaps Baselitz intended that response? Curator: Undoubtedly, his exploration of the figure, fragmented and inverted, becomes a powerful metaphor for disorientation, but also resilience. Through his intentional choices about the process and material, a cheap and accessible linoleum floor covering, it is made ready to convey that intent. Editor: Thinking about the cheap materials really makes it pop in my mind. And just looking at this, seeing that sort of distorted face rising out from the darkness...it feels archetypal, primal even. Like a nightmare we all share in some unspoken way. Anyway, very striking indeed. Curator: It seems, therefore, that in reflecting on its artistic creation and impact, that each viewer has something they can relate to.