Georg Baselitz

One could leaf through this book turning it upside down and guess the legends, since Georg Baselitz is indeed for his characters with their heads turned downwards. Thuis could be afun exercise to do with one’s children if you wish to initiate them to contemporary art (and if you don’t shy away from explaining some rather improper themes such as Grande nuit foutue)(Major ruined night)… This book, published at the moment of the exhibition at the musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris, is part of a series with constrained but legitimate ambitions. It aims at having unveiling without intimidating the corpus of current creators: short texts, various reproductions, selected quotations, and a synthetic chronology. From Tête de Raisky (oil on canvas from 1960) to Peuple truc – Objet zéro (sculpture from 2009), a vade-mecum in the spirit of our times, for those who are curious but in a rush.

• Georg Baselitz by Bernard Vasseur, Cercle d’art publication, 2011, 64 p., 12 €