Georg Baselitz, German artist who turned figurative painting on its head, has died, aged 88

Georg Baselitz, the influential German painter and sculptor, died on 30 April at age 88. Born Hans-Georg Kern in 1938 in Deutschbaselitz, he grew up amid the ruins of Nazi Germany and later adopted his surname from his birthplace. Expelled from the East Berlin Academy for "sociopolitical immaturity," he moved to West Berlin, where he rejected both gestural abstraction and Expressionism. His first solo exhibition in 1963 was shut down for obscenity. In 1969 he pioneered his signature inverted paintings, turning subjects upside down to sever image from representation. He also created large carved sculptures using axes and chainsaws. His later series, from 2014 onward, are considered his most astonishing work, culminating in a sustained focus on his wife, artist Elke Kretzschmar.

alison knowles dead make a salad fluxus

Alison Knowles, a pioneering artist of the Fluxus movement, died at age 92 in New York on October 29. Her gallery, James Fuentes, announced her passing but did not specify a cause. Knowles was best known for works like *Make a Salad* (1962) and *The Identical Lunch*, which used everyday materials and simple text-based instructions to create participatory art. Her most famous piece, *Make a Salad*, consists only of its title as a directive, allowing performers to interpret it freely; it has been staged at venues from Art Basel to Tate Modern. Knowles was a key figure in Fluxus, a movement formalized in 1963 by George Maciunas that rejected traditional art in favor of performance and accessible materials.

VALIE EXPORT, Icon of Feminist Art, Dead at 85

VALIE EXPORT, the radical Austrian performance artist, filmmaker, and sculptor widely regarded as the most significant feminist artist of the postwar era, died in Vienna on May 14, just three days before her 85th birthday. Her death was confirmed by Thaddaeus Ropac gallery, which represents her. Known for provocative works such as *Tapp und Tastkino* (1968), in which she invited passersby to touch her bare breasts through a miniature theater, EXPORT faced hate mail, death threats, and indecency charges but remained undeterred in her mission to challenge patriarchal norms through the female body and sexual agency.

Valie Export ist tot

Valie Export, the pioneering Austrian media and performance artist, has died at age 85 in Vienna. Born Waltraud Lehner in Linz in 1940, she adopted the name Valie Export in the late 1960s, derived from a cigarette brand, and became internationally known for provocative works such as "Tapp- und Tastkino" (1968) and "Aktionshose: Genitalpanik." Her practice critically examined gender roles, power structures, and the representation of the female body through film, video, photography, and performance. She participated in major exhibitions including Documenta, the Centre Pompidou, and the Museum of Modern Art, and represented Austria at the Venice Biennale in 1980 alongside Maria Lassnig. She also taught as a professor of media and performance art in Berlin and Cologne, and the VALIE EXPORT Center opened in Linz in 2017.

Artist Valie Export, Who Saw Right Through the Male Gaze, Dies at 85

Austrian artist Valie Export, a pioneering feminist performance and media artist, died on May 14, three days before her 86th birthday. Her death was confirmed by Thaddaeus Ropac Gallery. Export, born Waltraud Lehner in 1940, rejected traditional domestic roles and adopted her iconic all-uppercase name from a cigarette brand. She created guerrilla-style performances and films that directly confronted the male gaze and patriarchal society, often using her own body as a medium. Key works include “Genital Panic” (1968), in which she walked through a Munich cinema in crotchless pants, and “Tapp und Tastkino (Tap and Touch Cinema)” (1968), where she invited strangers to touch her bare breasts through a stage strapped to her chest.

Renowned gallerist Marian Goodman has died, aged 97

Marian Goodman, the renowned contemporary art dealer, died on 22 January at the age of 97. Her eponymous gallery confirmed she passed peacefully of natural causes. Over a 60-year career, Goodman built a reputation for representing challenging, conceptually ambitious artists, including Gerhard Richter, Nan Goldin, Anselm Kiefer, Julie Mehretu, William Kentridge, and Nairy Baghramian. She opened her first gallery in New York in 1977 and later expanded to Paris and London, before closing the London space in 2020. In her final decade, the gallery saw high-profile departures but also added new artists and opened a Los Angeles location in 2023 and a new Tribeca space in 2024. A succession plan was announced in 2021, and the gallery is now led by partners Emily-Jane Kirwan, Rose Lord, Leslie Nolen, and Junette Teng.

Remembering Thomas Neurath, who brought single-minded energy and intellectual bravura to leading the publishers Thames & Hudson

Thomas Neurath, who led the independent publishing house Thames & Hudson for nearly sixty years, has died. The son of founder Walter Neurath, Thomas took over the company in 1967 after his father's early death and built it into one of the most respected imprints for illustrated art books. Known for his single-minded energy and intellectual bravura, he forged close relationships with artists including David Hockney and Barbara Hepworth, and maintained the firm's independence as a family business. His personal collection included works by Oskar Kokoschka and Egon Schiele, and he was an avid book collector who combined business travel with museum visits.

VALIE EXPORT, icon of feminist art who placed the body at the center of her research, has died

È morta VALIE EXPORT, icona dell’arte femminista che ha messo il corpo al centro della sua ricerca

VALIE EXPORT, the Austrian artist and feminist icon known for using her body as a political and artistic tool, has died in Vienna at age 85. Born in Linz in 1940, she changed her name in 1967 and became a pioneer of performance, film, and media art, creating provocative works such as "Tapp-und Tastkino" (1968), where she turned her body into a touchable cinema screen, and "Aktionshose: Genitalpanik" (1969). Her career spanned over six decades, and she taught at institutions including the University of Wisconsin and the Berlin University of the Arts. In 2023, the Albertina Museum in Vienna held a major retrospective of her work.

Headfirst into Eternity

Kopfüber in die Ewigkeit

Conceptual artist Timm Ulrichs, who died on April 29 at age 86, has been buried in a self-designed grave in the Künstlernekropole (artists' necropolis) near Kassel, Germany. His tomb features a life-size bronze cast of his body buried head-first in the earth, with only the soles of his feet visible above ground. Ulrichs, a pioneer of West German postwar conceptual art known for provocative works like tattooing himself and locking himself inside a hollowed boulder, was laid to rest in the forest cemetery founded by artist Harry Kramer in 1992.

Valie Export en 2 minutes

Valie Export (1940–2026), the Austrian avant-garde artist known for radical feminist body art and video, has died at age 85. Born Waltraud Lehner in Linz, she studied design in Vienna before adopting her iconic pseudonym from a Canadian cigarette brand in 1967. Export rose to prominence with her 1969 performance *Genitalpanik*, which critiqued the male gaze and women's societal roles. She became a key figure in body art alongside the Vienna Actionists, later expanding into film and photography. Her first feature *Unsichtbare Gegner* (1976) screened at the Berlinale, and she won the Golden Bear in 1985 for *Die Praxis der Liebe*. She taught in Cologne from 1995 and participated in Documenta 6.

The Many Sheddings of Valie Export

Die vielen Häutungen der Valie Export

Valie Export, the Austrian media and performance artist known for using her body as a site of social critique, has died at age 85 in Vienna. Her final works include a black-and-white photo series of her forearm resting on a stone snake sculpture at the University of Vienna, exploring themes of skin, transformation, and mimesis. From the 1970s onward, she created iconic "Body Configurations" in which she placed her body on streets and against buildings along Vienna's Ringstrasse, tracing architectural forms to expose institutional power and patriarchal authority.