Gerhard Richter, one of the most important German (and international) artists in history, was born in Dresden in 1932. He studied at the local Academy of Arts from 1951–1956. After relocating to West Germany, he studied at the Dusseldorf Academy from 1961–1963, taking up teaching there beginning in 1971. Starting from the Social Realism problematic, he poses the question of what painting can be in today’s media-dominated society. He makes the artistic language his issue and turns it into the subject matter of his painting.

Richter doesn’t follow a single concept. Rather he cultivates several very distinct fields of activity that have been coexisting for decades. There’s his photography-based works, his abstract images (often in a painterly decal fashion) that have dominated his work since 1976, and his conceptual works, like, for instance, the large (200x200 cm) “1024 Colours” of 1974. Or, there are also the “Grey” images (by their shiny surface establishing a spatial relation to the viewer), and the “Vermalungen” (dispersed colour) in brown and grey, which combine sensual and conceptual elements. In addition to that, there are also the figurative works such as the “candle” series.

Richter both references and reconstructs in his works. His famous image “Ema”, now in the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, Germany, which shows a female nude coming down a flight of stairs, is a direct quotation of Marcel Duchamp’s “Nu, descendant un escalier.” His other photo-based works refer to historical models as well, alluding, for example, to Julia Margaret Cameron’s oeuvre by being out of focus. In some works, he uses art-historical reconstruction like in the candle-series. They refer to the rich and varied iconography of the candle in European art, but they are reconstructive, as they do not refer to a specific image–they don’t quote. They do, however, have a common source. This is, most probably, a lithograph by Honoré Daumier that depicts an artist who has just been refused at the Salon, and who points to his “masterpiece” while saying that the jury has proven themselves complete ignoramuses by refusing to include his painting: it shows a burning candle.

Richter puts the rather dead motif of the candle back into the context of contemporary art. This is a reconstruction of a historical complex. (1)

Gerhard Richter

Richter also reconstructs in his seascapes and cloud images. These subjects, as the main motif of a composition, arose in the late 18th and early 19th centuries (e.g. Alexander Cozens). By taking this up, Richter proves himself to be fascinated by reconstructing the art of the 19th century, turning it into very contemporary imagery. This attests to the continuity of artistic endeavour that Richter obviously understands very well.

The abstract works caused a great stir when they were presented on a large scale in an exhibition in the Kunsthalle Dusseldorf in 1986. By then, everybody was convinced that abstract expressionism was dying, and along came Richter to prove the contrary. His abstract pictorial elements possess a structural form, contrasting against purely informal parts of the pictures, outlining the surface structures of certain fields of colour. Some of the abstract works seem to be “closed,” refusing to let in the onlooker, leaving him outside their lively coloured surfaces. Other works, however, create a very deep pictorial space that onlookers are invited to explore.

With these works and by probing again and again what painting can be, Richter shows the complexity of reality, which is, by and large, the reality of painting.

(1) See Gerhard Charles Rump: Rekonstruktionen. Positionen zeitgenössischer Kunst. Berlin 2010, pp. 105-107

Exhibitions:

Zeitschnitt

Ein Hauch von Eden