Georg Baselitz: 'I want to make the best paintings - still' A conversation with Lisa-Marie Berndt on his exhibition in Paris

Georg Baselitz sits on a sofa in Salzburg, his flat cap pulled low over his forehead. We're speaking via Zoom, Berlin-Salzburg; his private secretary has arranged the conversation. Baselitz is 87, but instantly present—and his mind quickly returns to his early 20s. Back then, in 1961, he hitchhiked to Paris with his wife Elke and saw works by Eugène Leroy, Francis Picabia, and Henri Michaux for the first time. A hungry gaze, a curiosity that has remained.

His new exhibition at Thaddaeus Ropac in Pantin, a suburb of the French capital, bears a title that is as laconic as it is enigmatic: "A Leg of Manet from Paris." On display are a sculpture, drawings and paintings – many of which are now created while seated, some on the wheels of a rolling vehicle. Traces run across the canvases, networks of lines overlap bodies, figures appear and disappear again. It's about age, memory, and repetition. And about how to carry on – even when conditions shift. (...)