Georg Baselitz: Ein Bein von Manet aus Paris @ Thaddaeus Ropac, Pantin

Georg Baselitz, Traumflug sex, 2025

I loved the paintings and was moved by this exhibition as what might be seen as a sort of treatise on aging, the deterioration of the body, and the associated challenges. Moreover, the interaction of Baselitz's paintings and Thaddaeus Ropac's Pantin space were enthralling. I visited the exhibition in the early evening when the shadows cast by the latticed roof of the former ironwork factory were long, and in the heat, they were strong. Falling over the enormous paintings, creating patterns as if further caging the figures in their bodies aleady trapped inside the paintings' frames, and again on the walls, the shadows became integral to the works. The vision was quite spectacular. This was further underlined by the fact that the galleries were all but empty of visitors, so I had the pleasure of being with the paintings alone.

Georg Baselitz, Idigene kunst von damals, 2025

It was only after a little research that I understood the curious exhibition title, translated from the German as, A Leg By Manet from Paris. Apparently, Manet had difficulty painting legs, though I can be forgiven for not knowing this because in the nineteenth century, legs were not exactly on display. Manet's women typically appear in long dresses and men in loose fitting pants. So the connection to Manet is not so obvious, and certainly not visible in the paintings. The title is more about Baselitz than Manet, a reference to his own difficulties with mobility. The title also speaks to Baselitz's career long fascination with feet and hands - usually misshapen in his paintings and oversized in his sculptures. It seems ironic that an artist who has constantly pulled our attention to the feet and hands of his figures should find difficulty walking in later life.

Georg Baselitz, Warum nicht zwei, 2025

Georg Baselitz, Waren die Indigenen wirklich diejenigen, 2025

Where many artists accommodate the limitations of an aging body by painting smaller, Baselitz has gone bigger and included the traces of his negotiation of bigger canvases in the paintings themselves. Legs and mobility (or lack of it) are a major theme in these works that include the tracks left by his wheelchair as he skirts around in the painting process. There are also footprints, drips, smudges and other traces of movement as graffiti over the huge canvases. Accompanying the traces of process, misshapen, withering bodies are tenderly painted with Baselitz's familiar sensuous treatment of paint. The colour is usually fleshy, the body in the signature Baselitz upside down pose. And even though there are usually two bodies in the painting—his own and that of his wife—they rarely touch or interact. This sense of isolation is again familiar from decades of Baselitz's painting, but it feels central to the experience of aging as it is shown here.

Georg Baselitz, Verscheiden von den anderen, 2024

Over the years, I have read many critiques of Baselitz's work on the basis of his apparent misogyny. While he may well denigrate women, there is nothing in these paintings to support this. His aesthetic is one that reflects the human inevitability; we see the body falling, sleeping, in pain. Trapped by the frame, trapped within the body, the self is fragile in a whole new way now that Baseltiz is concerned with age. These are not visions of a self in which the ego is so fragile that it cannot reveal the vulnerability of being human. To my eyes, these paintings have little to do with gender or sexuality. If anything, the fragility of the aging male artist is humble and vulnerable. Self-obsessed maybe, but cruel to women? I don't see that in these paintings.

Georg Baselitz: Ein Bein von Manet aus Paris
Installation View, Thaddaeus Ropac, Pantin

Another critique often leveled at Baselitz's work is that the upside down figures are a gimmick that he has exploited for commercial and art world attention. It is true that he paints them over and over again, but here, the motif is not without motivation. The upside down body and supine bodies speak to its destabilization and incapacitation with age. Where bifurcation was once of Germany, in this exhibition, the doubled Baselitz paintings represent himself and his wife. In one painting, the two figures look as though they could be lying in their coffins - the body not simply withered, but dead. Together. Again, they might be bifurcated, but the meaning of the twin figures has shifted and is not without deeper relevance.