Born in Germany in 1938, Georg Baselitz has been painting since the late 1950s. He was controversial from the start, his first solo exhibition a shocker with its paintings of priapic men. In 1969, Baselitz began painting his subjects upside-down, a strategy that subverted pictorial content and forced viewers to contemplate the painting as surface, shapes, colors. He once said, “I was born into a destroyed order, a destroyed landscape, a destroyed people, a destroyed society. And I didn’t want to reestablish an order.” Upside-down is the ultimate disorder. Baselitz is now 83. “Pivotal Turn” brings six important early “inverted” works by Baselitz to the Met, gifted to the museum in honor of its 150th annniversary. —L.J.