Big Night (Remix)

Exhibition label: The first Remix Baselitz made in 2005 was The Big Night down the Drain, based on a 1962-63 painting that provoked a scandal when first exhibited. Baselitz created multiple Remixes of that work, including this watercolor. While he had made the original "as an act of aggression," this 2008 version adopts a more cheerful, even comical, mode, incorporating Hitler's mustache, a skull, and a pair of high heels. "It was a kind of caricature," Baselitz said of the related Remix painting. "It had something frivolous about it, and it also had a very different ghostly presence, which is not at all part of the old painting."