Rayski, 1960 Self-Portrait, 1960
What was I supposed to believe? I had completely fallen for Hovdenakk’s story. Was the whole thing made up? I kept quiet in the car after Baselitz’s statement that this was his first time in Norway, and completely accepted everything he said.
In hindsight, I have realised that the story may be true after all. Baselitz had been sitting next to me in the car in a terrible mood. The unfriendly welcome he had received from one of his greatest idols must have been a genuine disappointment. The man who in all seriousness had wrestled with expressionist painting and brought it forward into our own time – not just brought it forward, but renewed the art form’s relevance – to be received thus by the old master. There was nothing left to do but go home.
Untitled, 2021 Untitled, 2021
Published by MUNCH in connection with the exhibition
Georg Baselitz. Feet First 15 February – 4 May 2025
Head of MUNCH publishing: Josephine Langebrekke
Curatorial Editor: Jon-Ove Steihaug
Editor: Heidi Bale Amundsen
Editorial Consultant: Karen Elizabeth Lerheim
Translator (Foreword, ‘Stars in the Window’, ‘Motives for a Battle’, ‘Finding a Way through the Empty Space’): Rob Young Design: Øystein Arbo and Jens Johan Tandberg
Repro: Farbanalyse, Germany
Print and binding: Musumeci SpA, Italy
Cover: Georg Baselitz, Ekely, 2005
Georg Baselitz’s text on his sculpture Greetings from Oslo was originally published in 57 Meisterwerke: Liber amicorum für Felix Baumann, exh. cat. (Zurich: Kunsthaus Zurich, 2000), pp. 98–99.
Jon-Ove Steihaug’s interview with Georg Baselitz is a revised and expanded version of ‘There Is No Longer any Need for Landscape’, published in Living Lines (Oslo: MUNCH, 2021).
Copyright for artwork:
© Georg Baselitz, 2025
© Otto Dix / BONO, Oslo 2025
All rights reserved. This book’s contents may not be reproduced in any form, in whole or in part, without written permission from the publisher.
© 2025 Munchmuseet, Oslo www.munchmuseet.no
iSbn: 978-82-8462-047-3
MUNCH thanks its sponsors and partners:
The exhibition at MUNCH has been developed with the generous support of White Cube.