Back have basil that is being portrayed in forty five minutes and honored but he doesnt want to take part himself a really. Terrific actor a studio is a workshop im hard at work here i cant put up with disturbances in the workshop i cant have an audience in there even if its just a camera no one. Is going. To want to do in two thousand and eleven a sensation that south is in london the collection of talent do economists going under the hammer masterworks of the Twentieth Century including nine by the guy. Bosler. Boss and its his paintings also sinister and aggressive at this junction they fetched record prices. One buyer paid three point two Million Pounds for spectrum not a man with a giant fantasy dating from one thousand nine hundred sixty five the highest price ever paid for a boss in its. Full gallop bozza lives in exhaustible creator of pictures stagnation is a foreign word time and again he comes up with lee interpretations of well known motifs dogs hanging light and airy in the gallery of his be left today also go patch in south book because it is a shy basel its a certainly one of the very great painters of our age its not just in germany but internationally here certainly appreciated by the art market we see a Continuous Development of this appreciation its all for me one of the most important artists of the centuries and that commission was its a because a figure because you feel good in two thousand and seven so Norman Rosenthal devoted the Royal Academy his biggest ever retrospective to georg boston its that months archivist really shocked us as a whole i dont mean hes as important as picasso but you can talk about him in the same breath as because of this and think of him on this level is could. Knock him if he didnt come as a few to me to mean this little as i dont regard myself as the bearer of any message or as a magician who turns everything he touches to art but as opposed to all of its accords and yet hes a star of the art world his works hand in the leading museums worldwide even so hes been skinned when it comes to criticism. Has been levied or off the bat or trying to put on a i have always noticed with basil it that hes an. Credibly sensitive to statements he sees as negative almost like a seismograph. Only i get. Color show tough man recently retired curator at munichs modern art museum the pin that could take them all down the exhibited thousand hits as early as the one nine hundred seventy s. She devoted a whole room to him presenting a crosssection of his different periods to me but as a missile it painted on crazy theyre very sensible very deliberate very controlled people know if they do something they know precisely why theyre doing it but the you or boston its not just a painter graphic artist and sculptor hes also a passionate collector of africa not and man or is drawings his friends say he absorbs everything i can spawn one of those who infused about father that very early on was the connect a hands. Off they became friends. In the. Puzzle is if you can peer over there and it works basel its is a family man with a nice wife and well brought up children would have sold the can down i list as from the outside he could be a senior Civil Servant and it was often. In two thousand and six thousand its moved from northern germany to the that area setting up his consulate demogorgon never saxony he settled on the shores of lake ama munich he occupies expensive premises built by architects at soak and in the hong only you and all different time for a change boss admits is supposed to have said. As im sure not unique here is a very natural frank and so for short person you dont immediately see hes an artist. I was too busy other people usually think of artists as rather extravagant in that manner but hes not a toll plaza its was. Own in saxony but has declared the spot on lake ama to be his new home of choice when he sold dan about council he also sold a large part of his collection to an American Investment bank and it was time to move on years needed for interest hes not integrated sure but thats not a precondition thats the case with all celebrities there are others who are courthouses here we dont say you have to belong we want to leave him in peace after all hes supposed to be creating upgrade and thats why he came specially to bavaria i think some of. The bavarians an inquisitive bunch of mercury here i was. Basel its lives a reclusive life hidden behind fences and trains he wanted beautifully artistic work forget him. And his rights and so marked everything he does is quality was as is in trouble and he now lives in a house he commissioned from a very good architect. A bonus. So the variac can take pleasure in the fact that one of germanys leading artists lives here but it was a long journey. In one nine hundred fifty eight bassinets moved to west berlin after being expelled from the academy of visual and applied arts in the communist east the reason given was social and political in maturity in the pulsating capitalist half of the city the young painter was in on land his painting was out of tune with the times he still didnt have a deal. We avoided all and governor i said we all had rooms of our own in a big fat chair but bartletts and his family already had a flat to themselves a party had been announced and i saw footmarks streaks of paint and so i thought lets go to the studio then posits appeared behind me and said pretty roughly what are you doing here i said what am i supposed to do im an art dealer i just want to look into your studio i dont suppose theyll be another chance this is no way he said and they asked us counties and they are as. Sixteen we have em but then he thought a moment and said just a moment ago he squeezed through into the studio and came out holding a small a full folder with ten watercolors i was totally fascinated and goodness i should trust sr was going to run after you know those days you could pick up a student watercolor first thirty marks that was the going rate times ten makes three hundred dollars i keep it well i had fifty i said leave the others ill come back he said keep your fifty marks what i said thats a fair price what do you mean he said there are three hundred each of you for me comes off its got cost i will not. I think its fair to do the math. He set up his gonorrhoea in one thousand nine hundred sixty three together with benyamin caps they represented basel its along with other german painters of the wild school because he was here to. Visit to see that. There are still works by basel its in the galleries depository early works even though he hasnt been browsing it says official dina for some hands now. The early work by gail basel its was not in tune with the times it is dark in color dark psychologically and obscene his paintings were provocative most especially the big night down the drain. It is in the early years of germanys affluent Society People didnt want to see this filth or they didnt want to figures at all they wanted nothing to do with the past they didnt want these dirty colors they wanted their clean fridge and their shiny car but they didnt want to be confronted with the dirt of the past what i meant intellect i forgot i finished constantine and pushed i thought that went hand in hand with the economic miracle in germany people wanted to sweep it all under the carpet i dont mean they wanted to to night all but they treated it as an episode you could easily forget i had episode of argument over these i guess in life so i guess the contraband. But there was a group of young painters prepared to confront the past whatever the artist opposition and said among those fighting for a new espresso and style. Alongside basile it and his dilemma misha advena with a painter as a ot paying him and doff and marcus good pets. Not because you pets painter and sculptor in his studio as an old friend and colleague in those basel its what well his op was to start with and a sort an act of rebellion. Is got by the album and there was a general consensus that painting should be free of pornography free of smut at most you could paint nudes but it had to be serious or the nude wasnt out. Will betide those who contravene this noble concept of art as embodying dignity and perfection you must remember these are the terms in which people talked of painting then for and then going to sit in a divan there bigger for disease for a living in the m. R. I. Dr. Bassett shocked Respectable Society that his dark works one excision in the van and cats gallery sparked a scandal the tabloids had a great time and he said. Send out a scandal was got up by me in modern british he had good contacts to the hacks in berlin it was the silly season and they needed a headline or two so we gave them one vice squad move in they screamed it was all lies. Did they are disguised so i asked them the Public Prosecutor had never heard of it asked us and write it out and replace billeted arrived promptly the next day to cover the next into. It worked the Public Prosecutor stepped in the pictures were confiscated the press had a field day so was it just an Advertising Campaign for boston. Promotion first though it was a publicity stunt and it worked only we gain nothing from it we didnt have the courage to tell basel its wed made it all up because he was an extremely fragile neurotic type to you may have developed a therefore deals are going to slow we were both unsuccessful artists and basel its was subjected to more tax than i was even by the Public Prosecutor i believe. Hopped. Off but he was very brave about it and i think he may even have been pleased because at least his name became known to the. If it can shift gears just get fed up with the. Time did this whole little fact his pictures didnt sell any better. Stop im for after unplugs it was a court case the pictures were confiscated there was a huge outcry in the press they really went for me and i was certainly annoyed to say the least it was very unpleasant as. Well as to not remember that as i was after this exhibition basel its really turned against berlin and left the city i think he still doesnt like it on this. Day and his family moved to the country in one nine hundred seventy five he bought dan above consul never held. His body it was kept growing by all the attributes of his ot remained abrasive and sinister in his reputation as a specific german painter. And. It is the days of a god to target so hes in this tradition hes a german painter he acknowledges his debt to the german expressionists and to auto addicts people say he embraces his ugly painting right but can you call do the ugly about it i dont think so you can call them hush and there is certainly a certain harshness in the german art tradition have. Good about and do the german a song this is the tradition in which basel it sees himself as a painter. The fourth george to the accusation of being german you have to see how you cope with that you have to ask what sort of defense you can make as thats what i did was just ask what does german painting look like. And i began where one does begin with doer and chrono in comparison with their contemporaries in italy france or england and here german painting does stand out and it stands out because it is ugly or than the others it is ugly for very definite reasons it doesnt operate on a life size scale things are reduced so theres a particular form of obstruction people are mostly placed in landscapes where they dont belong for example in danger and so it. Georg bassinets was born again or can in the village of dont box and its in saxony in nine hundred thirty eight his parents were teachers it was only in one nine hundred sixty one that he changed his name to that of the village where he spent his childhood already as a teenager he demonstrated his autistic skills in drawings as well as the german harshness. Understood up to fair trade and i think its true of all artists that to a certain extend like all of us they bear the stamp of their environment their history so they are bound into this cultural situation but to call him the most german of all german painters i really dont know what that supposed to mean but on. The korean artists say oh stop it at the burnin aunt academy she was in professor bothell it says cos in two thousand and three she became his monster pupil. I am tired i had to show and i had painted some really cheerfully colored pictures and one day he came into the studio and took all the brushes and pains off the trolley and put them to one side he only left me some very narrow asia brushes and black and white paint begin with these he said its just dont try to imitate european pig. And dont forget where you come from which i dont think youre clueless ok Dennis Ferguson for do here comes positive had a few years ago basel is confronted the works of american painters and we exhibited these works here in south spoke and in pairs he said he looked at the cooney twice and wanted to imitate the brush strokes of this Great American painter brushstroke he also looked at the works of Jackson Pollock and hes tried out the dripping technique which but for all that he could never escape from his own brush technique because it is simply so striking in so markand is this is africa and if profit is like a language the way he uses the brush him shirish decision to order it sure did he said the strength of the stroke develops the trail left by the brush that is so uniquely bartletts that try as he might to learn from other artists he can ultimately not get away from his own technique of to name an ability and he comes in as and said im going to be interesting he can give. You if youre a painter you have to paint for example with your feet or with your nose or from behind or back to front you must take no notice of anyone who might be embarrassing but whos going to want you in the studio with the scream discovered by means of a record for july very. Casually bassinets does allow himself to be observed at work he now paints his pictures on the floor but that has not deprived them of any of them momentum. I basel it has never actually achieved harmony hes always been the aggressive painter and thats what sets him apart in the modern i could leave him on to us what in your. Bassinets remains true to himself as an artiste. The most effect off maybe i need to go back to his most famous group of works i mean the heroes of the heroes such can be found in greek antiquity but when we think of Central Europe then theres a particular image of the hero that very strongly bears the mark of Germany Foundation get paid decent and chris that they are in the larger the sphere of to care for after all that happened in germany and austria in the one nine hundred thirty s. And fortys an artist who maintains this critical detachment and takes up the feelings of the hero its a chaotic and but this is the theme of this is that its got a great deal to do with german history he made his head of it off to cry from the transaction often it touches it its a torch so what sahara then she things that arent any heroes anymore you know its a value for him a brave man simply someone praised in song with tattoos in his own or someone who does Something Special like a knife got action in my. Life gods and artist heroes. And his friends. Marcus new caps on the left. And michelle and then on the right the brave men of the art business. Did that mission kind of provoke at superheroes provocative i cant follow that argument and falsely their quote illustrations on his view of the artist. As as the dash to construction the construct the depiction of the artist as he felt him to be in those days isolated under attack attack here at. The hero pictures served to point up artistic selfassertion bassinets himself calls one of them ideal picture a gift of god an affordable i with elevation. So i know the nature of the i dont draw profession but a situation an attitude which was very aggressive and turned its back on what was happening in berlin and elsewhere for us in getting that all of us will perceive that went as advice for example on the way to work is a call out of the whole situation. Was a painter from saxony thats important and hes not held in high regard his work borders on. Basel its only mentioned him in the title or and thats as it and tutored was could looked at the picture self is his own idea of himself id say. At an auction at sothebys in new york in one thousand nine hundred ninety one a buyer paid the record price of more than a Million Dollars for look this rishta on the way to work its precisely there where men take care of paintings that still make top prices fascinates pictures can be found in all the major museums and collectors the spin off to. His or do you consider me he is of course an artist who never sticks to a cycle for very long but always quickly moves on to the next we often prefer him to stick a bit longer to a particular series simply because the demand is there for completed groups of works but this curiosity this desire to jump from one thing to the next that fascinates me too in that sense every visit his studio is a surprise because you never know what youre going to get to see whether its emerged. Its always the next thing while you still got the last one in your head youre surprised because the next ones theyre already. Home market bartletts is an upside down motif apparently trick maintaining to this game. That you know its in hundred nine hundred sixty nine bartletts has been standing his motives on their head this trick allows him to treat the subject more objective lee he can deflect attention from the obvious the magic statement and direct it towards the purely painterly as he puts it it leaves me onions up to had called me and said i have it i know how to do it im going to paint abstract great i said then ill paint things on the head too no he said i just wanted to tell my friends so we must all paint things on their heads for a year because gales invented it that said no hed rather do it alone and thats what he did for that an opera. A simple idea with a huge effect on the forest upside down in this way basile it revolutionized traditional Landscape Painting and gave it a new lease of life. People. Thought about this is methods of inverting pictures is only possible when its deliberately seen as abstract otherwise it would be just silly to paint the world on its head thats not enough there must be some intellectual contemporary reference and in that sense its the highest form of abstraction to form the abstracts or. The one killed gallery in london on display at boston it serious a fool an eagles an old man teeth reinterpreted and almost compulsively repeated it refuses to leave the artist to learn. Something here does consequently you see pollock and all the abstract painting which has a sense of quality it was a sponsor a sin leashed. In this country you see the falling if you like as black tears but the subject is of course the eagle jewish there are powerful i. Ever wanted to control it if he wanted control over the subject but at the same time he wanted to get as far away as possible from the immediate meaning of the concrete object of course even if you stand the german eagle on its head the concrete meaning is obviously still there that ye might as i kind of piece said he wasnt a political artist but he is a political artist that doesnt mean he takes to the barricades but he is a thinking artist and he thinks about the truth the foreign eagle is of course an important german symbol like the tree and the forest list the traditional bisht the good torture symbol all the forest is of course a major german theme right in the bush because story just came out. You know the merest moment everyone who sees a puzzle its for the first time tries to twist their head around in order to see what its a picture of. On the i mean to shift it as a shown that in itself means they take half a minute longer looking at the picture than they would if it were the right way up. This is the second the my lai you can recognize the quality of the painting better if the picture is a little more abstract thats been addressed abstract art is. Its no secret that basel its paints his pictures upside down from the outset he doesnt simply turn them around he constantly seeks to liberate painting from the constraints of naturalism and creates a new dimension in which the motifs reorganize themselves. You knew. If a missile in the north well stuffed or wasnt understood sort of it i still miss a serious discussion because i think the program ive presented transcends and needs more than one painter or of me up twelve as i dont bother as i tell sean for about a little bit of them coffee there were upside down pictures before basel its in the one nine hundred fifty s. There were painters whose names i forgotten but they had no influence he did it at the right moment for going to go but as i say brant have taught at psych enough but it was such an iconic decision that anyone else who did it would have been seen as an inferior imitator no painter once that you know came out of it it it was so an ambiguous and so easy to imitate that the territory was occupied or darva was it damn it i guess is that. Gail basil it is one of those artists whove managed to grow rich in their own lifetime sales of his art enabled him to buy a castle he lived in the den a book near hildas home for more than thirty years. And they should be the cranes ply their course through the heavens look once look twice and then look at me again. Affinities thing come from i find this compromise on the part of painters who paint something you can put in the landscape very bad for it its a compromise i think a landscape doesnt have to stand comparison with the painted landscape which is in fact like. The device a lemon is the only valves on the white canvas is the universe and this universe is weightless it has no gravity it has no light and no dark you have to introduce all of that yourself youre not dependent on the earths gravity heavy weights mean nothing you dont need a caterpillar truck to move a work you can do it in two brushstrokes but once youve understood this image of the canvas then everything is possible including painting things upside down and in principle everythings abstract painting is abstract then you have all sorts of attempts to transfer this to something representation all get this done for us in english thats what and theyre also attempts to transfer it into something totally abstract abstract its a transport in the script is out there for me the question of abstract or not abstract simply doesnt arise out. Of tin cup pictures painted upside down have remained basil its trademark admittedly one thats worn a little thin its mom of it as and in the foster life its easy to overlook in the face of this upside down painting that this isnt why hes a great artist its just that hes a virtuous a painter and sometimes the idea is overvalued relative to the fact that the picture is a great work of art that its. Positive has not yet founded a school based on his style but through him painting is getting a new impetus and asserting itself in Art Historical terms. Yes really now i ask you who is the more important for the history of music or paganini or beethovens or that any reasonable person will say beethoven but that he has his own press is so be it often that. Hell say beethoven didnt just refine and present existing music but also added his own style. Games along. Of the beethoven created was a wholly new styles on which Young Musicians with other musicians can build so you have to look at a picture and ask is it paganini or beethoven. Is great as it often. Isnt as im about as it is because thats number in the mozart when you sat down with positives he lives on a farm of the time hed run out and come back with a bird in his hand he was the only person i know who was able to pluck a bird out from under the eaves and hes a man with mysteries you know thats what makes him an unusual man from inside. Bartletts his forty two years old when he was imparted to exhibit in the german villian at the one thousand eight hundred venice biennale. Be an island if the billion dollar is still the accolade for an artist and everyone thought he did exhibit pictures that we knew upside down pictures that was already his trademark hed become well known with these upside down pictures but what did he do for the first time he made a sculpture of my life and our. Yossef boys thought boston is his culture not even worthy of the first semester. And he succeeded with the sculpture and then he didnt need to hang the triptychs anymore or rather detest. With such german names as German School very nice pictures session of it or about the time he was asked at the time why he hadnt exhibited any pictures but only a stop to just have it all to the children of the german pavilion has been filled up with sculptures on the last two occasions all with just one in the case of the look around him and then again with voice its a tradition i wanted to follow in short order and i must also do so he did a sculpture that was derived from african models archaic african sculptures ritual sculptures it was a figure leaning backwards with one arm raised this was misinterpreted people said ah a german artist comes and makes a statue giving a nazi salute that was total rubbish of course to that on a trip youd stay on and the school told me to hit up the people simply didnt look hard enough theyd just delivered a preconceived verdict like a cliche was washing my stuff and if you have to be a champion in not looking in order to see an outstretched arm with the palm facing upwards as a nazi salute with. That album is that i was also found on the outside not on the inside its unmistakable they must have been blind. Scripture says youre this sure there are things about the sculpture you can criticize but all in all i find it a successful contribution or attempt on my part as are. Bassinets continued to make sculptures the roughness of his paintings its reflected in the word he uses. As for physicians it was evidently in tune with the times sculpture was on the decline somehow it had grown too fond of stone and bone painters meanwhile were evidently able to discover and pursue new paths in sculpture. And basel it as in all his works provided a new way and arrived at these magnificent sculptures big believe for them for we gave. These goals are things going to only come. Back when it started the art of africa and its powerful expressiveness. It was obvious not for me i have to basel its is like a sponge he has a lot of things in his head of an african art not the whole of african art but certain things exerted a huge influence on him and he reshaped them in his own way if you like and made his own art out of the order marked process and of course. Most of his sculptures are of wood figures or heads or legs with feet even after thirty years his sculptural output comprises only around forty was not much compared with the number of quickly painted pictures. Everywhere leverage does or ive seen him do sculptures legs they were which he looked out and said that wont do so he took a chain saw and sold them us next because he gave norman contract to your school to insert that postulates how thats obviously of all the artists that i know basel its has the most objective sense of his own work. The big. Fish fish. Bassinets is proud to show his wife what he has done and she in turn is not shy of offering a few comments but her verdict in the end a good piece of work is. Going to slash the. Machine can. You remember if you couldnt. Stick to mission your own big theres not just one way there are many ways and above all there are diversions in order to get out of this tangle you need help the send off to kid that i was is fighting an ace but at least there are my children are but above all my wife is my to for that also goes for my own uncertainties i appreciate the criticism critic basil its why im a for me so and its for me it was always someone quite capable of criticising not in the sense that such and such is bad and doesnt interest me but in the sense of what possibilities do i have to move and i go along with that and ask what possibilities does he have these have to be seen and discovered and the impulse is mutual when supplied. Gale bartlett sent you want to ten days at a joint exhibition and then when they share a birthday and an expressionist painting style means that there is a generation younger than. Your future they dont remember there are many rules on how to paint a picture but there are no rules on how not to do it he paints according to the rules on how not to do it i like that its unconventional that doesnt mean hes better than me. Again or boss and its also about writes. Taught sometimes reflecting on his own past work. Badly at unga fun and beer guzzling has begun to repaint important early works and i first heard about this when he phoned and said carla you must come to down to bourg and see my new pictures theyre magnificent ive been repainting old pictures you see i thought for heavens sake that can only be a flop and i wish i knew what i needed it i thought hed be painting some sort of copy. In two thousand and eight he read painted the big night down the drain he was liberating himself from the ghosts of the past. With a detachment of the mature artist basel its confronted his early works he repainted old motifs and called the cycle remakes. Becoming this shame because when you keep reinventing all this how can you keep on redefining yourself and take up seems youve already dealt with as you did in. Basel it is not a painter who can escape modernism in my opinion this will be the next step in the history of painting. Or and god and now with the remakes pictures hes planted himself firmly there and i give a shit. Back. In two thousand and six minutes moved to the various that same year the pina could take them all down in the mix pictures interpreted keane works. The one hundred one via bite and very quickly we arranged a major exhibition with the remakes pictures it was our first big exhibition and during the preparation this oh so tranquil artist was in a complete panic. Stock of. Him from up to his famous and recognized that he was in a blind funk how would the pictures go down too tough on the football could people accept them. Up here. In atlanta he still thinks his old pictures are great he realized that when he was repainting annoyed about global does this kind of i dont think thats a continuation or an extension of the themes but rather that the themes are simply part of art history now hes liberated from all the fanatic constraints and hes in a position simply to paint without constraints without threats without happiness on happiness or sentimentality or neutering or owner. Or in order to. Own or gloopy hes reached a situation which can almost be described as olympian as in the log for he can move his paints freely around his canvas on the floor and i find that fascinating. Gale bassinets is now at the pinnacle of his fame his work doesnt betray his age. Hell never die. Hes over seventy now but inside hes got five hundred sixty horsepower he doesnt stand still he drives so fast hes a visionary i dont know where his creative thoughts will stop because hes such an inquisitive person by then theyll join him going getting in the nation today his artworks are becoming more playful the expressive brush stroke has remained but he creates much more lightness on the canvas even so no one should feel quite sure that things will stay this way for this artist is continually inventing himself. For sarah willis playing for is a. Push to. Join her on her journey as news or discovery this time shes in cuba im spending all day hanging out with these fantastic about no fourth place. Just to spot. These men share a common history. Voting demaris who is jewish and again she recently was muslim. Shes great grandfather say vulcans mother from the nazis in occupied albania. Over seventy years later the to pay tribute to this relic of. Thirty minutes on a d. W. I. Dropping bombs on civilians. More trouble the situation escalates theres no longer for scrupulous. Ruthless contemplation of military leaders work ok extend the past. Technological progress to come to fruition said mr carson the trip. To her starting february third on d w. Place. Between players. This is due to the news live from berlin current mobilized to protest the turkish intervention in syria demonstrations and eleven on its side the Turkish Embassy is germany also preparing for a large kurdish demonstration placers a day. Fighting corruption tops the agenda of the African Union on youll see all of us in ethiopia our correspondent take oath to nigeria programs that have corruption is affecting peoples daily lives