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Georg Baselitz, The Gleaner, 1978
From the Guggenheim:
The dark of night laps at the edges of The Gleaner (1978), a fire burns on the upper left, and a sunlike shape hovers beneath the lone figure. Yet Georg Baselitz’s monumental, somber work was painted during a decade of well-being in Germany, when the generation of the wirtschaftswunder—the economic miracle—was interrupted in its relentless quest for stable prosperity only by the occasional political scandal or terrorist attack. How does this image, so clearly a representation of an existentialist condition, address the complex issues facing postwar German art and society?
The key lies in the orientation of the gleaner, searching for sustenance in a barren landscape: the figure is depicted upside down. Baselitz has used this device consistently since 1969–70, his intention being, in part, to subvert the criteria for viewing paintings. To this end, Baselitz inverts, and thus negates, the subjects of his work. He cites but does not pay homage to the mythic protagonists that, as in Wagner’s epic operas, have so often been the focus of German art and culture. For Baselitz, the individual is the locus of redemption and the cause for despair. He has painted a great number of his antiheroes in guises ranging from military costumes to stark nudity.
For over 13 years (and girlfriend and children), architect Mickey Muennig lived in the tiny Greenhouse—his 1976 take on the then-popular dome and his celestial artistic response. From the deck of the outdoor bath, you can see up the coast.
Inside the one-room house, the reclaimed-redwood platform bed hangs on slender steel rods fastened to the ceiling. The ceiling cap is a vent—the house’s thermostat.
“Trace Heavens” is a series of gorgeous light installations by James Nizam. To create these images James painstakingly made incisions into the structure of a house to capture and manipulate sunlight into light sculptures.
Amanda Nelson collected 40,000 pieces of junk mail, folded and bundled them together.
