Georg Baselitz Quotes

Every work of art changes its predecessors.

There have been countless changes in the long history of art. The most significant have been brought about by the genius of a single artist.

The creator of the new composition in the arts is an outlaw until he is a classic.

Art need no longer be an account of past sensations.

Imitation of the art of earlier centuries, as that done by Picasso and Modigliani , is carried on not to perpetuate ancient values but to demonstrate that new aesthetic orders now prevail.

Every movement that slays its gods creates new ones, of course. I loathe talk of the sixties and seventies being a 'Greatest Generation' of artists, but if we're going to use such idiotic appellations, let this one also be applied to the artists, curators, and gallerists who emerged in the first half of the nineties.

I like people that challenge their art, not only in the purist way, but also in terms of how they could provoke and make something different.

I didn't want to save art - I respected the older artists too much to think art needed saving. But I knew it was finished, even though, at that time, I didn't know what I would do.

Whatever an artist's personal feelings are, as soon as an artist fills a certain area on the canvas or circumscribes it, he becomes historical. He acts from or upon other artists.

It was a movement that had all the art critics, all the museum directors in its thrall.

From 1940 to the present, the art world - and particularly Los Angeles - has undergone a transformation not unlike the Italian Renaissance.

I am Warhol. I am the No. 1 most impactful artist of our generation. I am Shakespeare in the flesh.

Every so often, a painter has to destroy painting. Cezanne did it, Picasso did it with Cubism. Then Pollock did it. He busted our idea of a picture all to hell. Then there could be new paintings again.

I'm very aware of the influence I've had, and I'm very pleased with that, because it proves that my work was necessary, that people liked it, and that it was right for its time which is a big compliment. But of course, this means I now have to move on. If more people are doing what I'm doing, I have to evolve. I'm pushed toward a new direction, and I have to let myself be tempted, find out where I can go.

When, in 1913, in a desperate attempt to rid art of the ballast of objectivity, I took refuge in the form of the square... the critics... sighed, "All that we loved has been lost. We are in a desert"... But the desert is filled with the spirit of non-objective feeling.

A painter like Picasso, who runs through many periods and phases, ends up by saying all those things which are on the tip of the tongue of the age to say, and finally sterilizes the originality of his contemporaries and juniors.

That's what great art does - it inspires other artists to do great art, and that's what it should do.

When you move artistically, the natural inclination is to denounce everything that's gone before.

The only happy artist is a dead artist, because only then you can't change. After I die, I'll probably come back as a paintbrush.

I don’t think you can talk about progress in art—movement, but not progress.

Modern art was born from a desire to destroy kitsch.

New arts destroy the old.

This grandiose tragedy that we call modern art.

Art changes all the time, but it never "improves." It may go down, or up, but it never improves as technology and medicine improve.

The impulse of modern art was this desire to destroy beauty.