Gerhard Richter (*1932, lives and works in Cologne) is considered one of the greatest artists of our time. In the sixty years of his artistic activity he has produced a corpus of works that is very heterogeneous in terms of themes and styles. There Beyeler Foundation dedicates a large exhibition to him without precedent in Switzerland. For the first time the spotlights are focused on his series, cycles and spaces, and therefore on an aspect of his work that has not yet been investigated until now.
Since the 1960s Richter has always dealt with series as well as with the single work, as evidenced by his early paintings both photorealistic and abstract, works with mirrors and glass or the recent cycles of digital prints of 2013. At the same time Richter looked from the beginning also to the presentation of his art in connection with architecture, creating several times works intended for a specific place. Over the decades, numerous cycles and spaces have thus arisen which in various ways arouse reflections on the mutual relationship between a single image, a set of works and an exhibition space.
In Richter's work, the series start from different cues and questions: there are groups of works linked to each other by the contentual affinity of the subject, as exemplified by Acht Lernschwestern (Eight trainee nurses) from 1966 up to18. Oktober 1977 (October 18, 1977) of 1988; in other cases the artist has tackled the theme according to different variations, so that it is the link between motif and variation that is decisive, as highlighted by Verkündigung nach Tizian (Annunciation according to Titian) of 1973 up to S. mit Kind (S. with child) from 1995. As for the groups of abstract paintings, they create an enlarged imaginative space in which the single painting and the general impression constantly refer to each other, for example in Wald (Forest) from 2005 or in Cage from 2006. These and other aspects of Gerhard Richter's work on series and spaces are documented for the first time in the very dense exhibition at the Fondation Beyele
The beginnings of Richter's interest in the interplay of paint and space date back to the 1950s, when he began studying wall painting at the Dresden Academy of Art. From the drawings of that time it is clear how much attention he already paid to the architectural context. But the assiduous research on spaces and forms of art presentation becomes evident above all in the numerous sketches of the Atlas made starting from the 1960s, in which both utopian and real exhibition spaces are designed which explore in a fundamental and varied way the relationship that unites image and architecture, where the boundaries between art and space become blurred. In an interview Richter underlined his high interest in space: “I have a dream of mine – that the paintings transform themselves into the environment and become architecture themselves.”
Alongside the inclination for architecture, the work on paintings composed of several parts also plays a role from his early works. As an early example, the exhibition offers Acht Lernschwestern (Eight trainee nurses), 1966, a sequence of eight portraits of the murdered young women that the press had published at the time of the events
In the 1970s, another kind of cycles was added to these groups of works with similar contents, aimed at probing the relationship between theme and variation. In the paintings of the Verkündigung nach Tizian (Annunciation according to Titian), 1973, Richter approached the 1535 model through successive versions, during which the abstraction of the pictorial vision was progressively accentuated. Richter said: “The determining factor was the attempt to copy the painting. Not succeeding showed me the difficulties we have due to the fact that all that culture has been lost, but it is our job to start from this assumption and do something with it.” The compositions, now kept in various collections, can exceptionally be admired here as a whole
Another core of works from the 1975s is Grau (Grey), from XNUMX, which Richter exhibited as a whole in the Abteiberg museum in Mönchengladbach. On the birth of his gray paintings he said: “It began with small works, which I simply repainted in gray, and with photographic images, which I rubbed until absolutely nothing was visible. So I saw qualitative differences manifest themselves, after which it was exciting to see why one was good and the other less good or less ugly and so on.” The result is a series that even in the negation through the gray color reveals artistic qualities in the variation.
The cycles of abstract paintings, of which Bach, from 1992, Wald (Forest), from 2005, and Cage, from 2006, among others, are on display, already in their pictorial process they are treated differently compared to the single paintings. Richter said about it:“In the case of abstract paintings, all are born at once. It's not that one is finished and then the second arrives, but all the paintings are set at the same time. Initially they all have the same status, but then they learn from each other. So I can compare them with each other.” A new, expanded pictorial space originates from the reciprocal relationships between the individual canvases
In these abstract cycles, the titles also have an important meaning. For example, Cage (2006) takes its name from the music of John Cage that Richter listened to while working on the paintings; the 2005 cycle Wald (Forest) was inspired by photographs of walks in the woods. However, the paintings are not figurative, but abstractly thematize the feeling of being able to get lost in the forest: "It rather describes the feeling one gets in an unknown forest." The concrete material space is joined by the imaginary space of abstract compositions.
The cycle 18. Oktober 1977 (October 18, 1977) executed in 1988 occupies a special place both in the exhibition and in Richter's oeuvre. It is the result of many years of reflection on German history in relation to the Rote Armee Fraktion / Red Army Fraction (RAF). The sequence includes 15 paintings taken from photographs reported by the press, some of which – such as the three Tote (Morta) paintings – are in themselves variations on the theme. The paintings do not provide answers to questions about political ideology, but highlight the uncertainty, the doubts, but also the insistent and condensed confrontation. The space becomes a historical environment, the observation of which offers the starting point for further reflections on the possibility of representing history in painting. In Verkündigung nach Tizian (Annunciation according to Titian) Richter had tackled the historical-artistic model. The series S. mit Kind (S. with child), created in 1995 on the basis of family photographs, brings into play the relationship between tradition and the present time in another way and on an emotional level. Richter in this regard: “After all, one can no longer paint a motherhood. That would be completely reactionary. They would look like Madonnas. Some of the difficulty is felt when you scrape off what you have painted, go over it with the palette knife and bring it back to the surface. This is why the series is derived from attempts to make a picture of it anyway. They are actually all damaged or unbearably cloying paintings.” These pictorial approaches despite the doubts about the maintenance of the subject are revealed by the space.
These paintings form a whole, unlike the series which, while exploring a certain theme, must nevertheless be observed in their individual components, such as still lifes: “Most of the series are also different because they represent different attempts. Indeed these have the same subject, but were never meant to be shown together. For example the images of candles. However, there are also paintings that are truly coherent with each other, which deal with a theme in such different variations that they are exhibited side by side. Consequently they are suitable for a space”. These are the groups of works on which the exhibition focuses.
In Spiegeln (Mirrors), on which Richter has worked with increasing intensity since the 1990s, the relationship with space denotes a new quality. If before we looked at the paintings, now it is the exhibition space itself and the visitors that appear on the mirrored glass surfaces. Even the architecture of the rooms becomes part of the paintings. The planes of reflective objects, spaces and the ever-changing mirror image overlap. The viewer's experience is consciously part of the work. Forming a space are the exhibition Vier graue Spiegel (Four gray mirrors), from 2013.
The character of the object covered by these monochrome mirrors is even more accentuated in the works on the glass plates. In the sequence with 12 plates and in the house of cards with 7 plates, both from 2013, multiple transitions take place, from the gaze through the plates and the imaginative space of the reflections to the tangible presence of the glass plates themselves as objects. “Glass is something very fascinating: as a transparent sheet it separates us and protects us from the reality that it shows us as if it were a painting. And as a mirror it reveals to us an image that is not where we see it. The slab itself is what is to be looked at only if we exhibit it as an object. That really intrigued me."
The series of Strips also belongs to the most recent works on display, also from 2013. They are based on the photograph of an abstract painting from 1990, the details of which were later enlarged with the computer and then reflected several times. The question of the artistic potential inherent in seriality and repetition takes on a new light here. Overall, the exhibition therefore presents numerous aspects linked to the meaning of series, cycle and space in Richter's work, extending from thematic environments to those that illustrate the working process, from expanded imaginative spaces to direct reciprocal relationships between imaginative space and exhibition space in the halls of glass and mirrors. The observer not only moves from one work to another, but also from one room to another, where he finds himself in the middle of a whole. In each of these areas, new references are created between Richter's works and the context of the place. The series on display are repeatedly counterpointed by individual works by the artist; among these are paintings that have achieved the status of icon, such as Betty, from 1988, or Lesende (Reader), from 1994. They break up the succession of spaces and invite us to delve further into reflection on the relationship between a single work and a group of works in the production by Richter.Gerhard Richter was born in Dresden in 1932. At first he studied at the art academy in his hometown. In 1961 he fled to the Federal Republic and continued his studies at the Düsseldorf Academy, where he held the position of full professor from 1971 to 1994. In 1972 he exhibited in the German pavilion at the Venice Biennale as well as at the Documenta in Kassel, where he was also represented in 1977, 1982, 1992 and 1997. In 2002 the Museum of Modern Art in New York celebrated him with a large exhibition event. Most recently in 2011/12 the retrospective Panorama visited the Tate Modern in London, the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin and the Center Georges Pompidou in Paris. The exhibition is conceived in close collaboration with the artist and the Gerhard Richte archive
Guest curator of the exhibition is Hans Ulrich Obrist, co-director of the Serpentine Gallery in London. Obrist is a longtime friend of Gerhard Richter and an extraordinary connoisseur of his work. For over twenty years he has been carrying out joint projects with the artist. He is also the author of numerous publications on the German painter. For the Swiss Hans Ulrich Obrist this is the first major exhibition curated in his homeland.
The exhibition is realized with the support of Sam Keller, director of the Fondation Beyeler, and Michiko Kono, Associate Curator at the Fondation Beyeler.
The exhibition is accompanied by a catalog in German and English, with texts by Georges-Didi Huberman, Dietmar Elger, Michiko Kono and Dieter Schwarz and an interview with Gerhard Richter by Hans Ulrich Obrist. Special thanks go to Dieter Schwarz for his participation in the dialogue regarding the exhibition concept and to Dietmar Elger for his support in the exhibition design.
Fondation Beyeler, Beyeler Museum AG, Baselstrasse 77, CH-4125 Riehen (Switzerland)
Fondation Beyeler opening hours: daily 10.00–18.00, Wednesday until 20.00
