Georg Baselitz

Georg Baselitz returns to White Cube Bermondsey for the first time in eight years with the solo exhibition A Confession of My Sins. Comprising a large body of new work produced during an intensive year in the studio, the exhibition features large-scale paintings and a selection of works on paper in which the artist, now 86, surveys the past six and a half decades of his practice.

From the contemplative lens of old age, Baselitz reflects upon a lifetime of lived experience and artistic invention, paying homage to key inspirations as well as unearthing pictorial references from sketches created in his youth. ‘I exclusively deal with my own past, always,’ Baselitz asserts, but ‘it was a different painter who did those earlier works. It was me, to be sure, but in a different spirit with a different intention.’

Georg Baselitz (b. 1938) lives and works near Salzburg, Austria; at lake Ammersee, Germany; and Imperia, Italy. He has exhibited widely, including solo shows at Museo di Palazzo Grimani, Venice (2022); Centre Pompidou, Musée national d’art moderne, Paris (2021); Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice (2019); Fondation Beyeler, Basel, Switzerland, and Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington (2018); Städel Museum, Frankfurt (2016 -- 17, travelling); Haus der Kunst, Munich (2014); Franz Marc Museum, Kochel am See, Germany (2014); Musée d’art moderne de la Ville de Paris (2011 and 1996); Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister der Staatlichen Kunstsammlung Dresden, Germany (2009); Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, Germany (2009); Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Donna Regina, Naples (2008); Royal Academy of Arts, London (2007); Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, Denmark (2006); and Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (1995, travelling). Significant group exhibitions include ‘Baselitz, Richter, Polke, Kiefer -- The Early Years of the Old Masters’, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Germany (2019, travelling); the 56th, 52nd, 39th Venice Biennale (2015, 2007, 1980); ‘Germany Divided, Baselitz and His Generation from the Duerckheim Collection’, British Museum, London (2014); Carnegie International, Pittsburgh (1995, 1988, 1985); ‘Bilderstreit’, Museum Ludwig / Rheinhallen, Cologne (1989); ‘A New Spirit in Painting’, Royal Academy of Arts, London (1981); and Documenta 7 and 5, Kassel, Germany (1982, 1972).