Why It’s Worth a Look: Marking the artist’s 80th birthday, this exhibition brings together significant works loaned from institutions and private collections, spanning the breadth of Baselitz’s long career. One of Germany’s most significant and celebrated artists, Baselitz is a part of a generation of artists that reinvented German painting in an era that was struggling to come to terms with the repercussions of World War II. Baselitz (and his contemporaries) opened a floodgate of creativity that was repressed by the Third Reich’s state censorship apparatus; unleashing a wave of radical artwork that wrestled with the guilt of a nation and shouldered the responsibility of redirecting its artistic legacy. Baselitz’s candor, propensity for risk, and technical rigor influenced generations of German painters.