âWhat I am trying to do in each picture is to bring together the most disparate and mutually contradictory elements, alive and viable, in the greatest possible freedom.â
Abstraktes Bild from 1990 is an exemplary test.mes nt to Gerhard Richterâs singular artistic voice and unparalleled impact on the legacy of contemporary painting. The present work is among Richterâs iconic Abstrakte Bilderâwidely acclaimed as one of the most groundbreaking innovations in abstract art over the last five decadesâand foregrounds the artistâs pioneering endeavor to capture a more visceral and fundamental interaction between artist and painting. Diverging from his earlier photorealist paintings in favor of pure abstraction, Richter harnessed the liberating capacities of variegated hues and an entirely innovative technique: âWhat I am trying to do in each picture is to bring together the most disparate and mutually contradictory elements, alive and viable, in the greatest possible freedom.â (the artist quoted in: Dietmar Elger and Hans Ulrich Obrist, eds., Gerhard Richter â Text: Writings, Interviews and Letters 1961 - 2007, London 2009, p. 187) A paragon of the artist's epoch-defining series, Abstraktes Bild wholly embodies Gerhard Richter's conceptual and aesthetic enterprise. Executed in shimmering gunmetal, violet, ruby, and alabaster hues, Abstraktes Bild is further distinguished by its inclusion in the acclaimed 1991 presentation, Gerhard Richter: Mirrors at Anthony d'Offay Gallery, London. Works from this exhibition are lauded among the finest examples in Richter's prolific oeuvre and are today represented in prestigious public and private collects ions, including the Tate, London; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; and the Doris and Donald Fisher collects ion, San Francisco.
A bright alabaster white illuminates the upper right corner of the canvas, shifting across the right edge of the composition, evoking a glimmering moonlight rippling across a gently rippling pond. In stark contrast with this brightness are the horizontal strokes of inky ebony, unfurling across the upper register of the canvas, receding into glimpses of crimson red and golden yellow sporadically peeking out into the picture plane. This interplay of color evokes the slow yet dramatic transformation of celestial vistasâof the midnight sky steadily shrouding the embers of the setting sunâstacked atop the hazy earthly tones of dusty teal, gunmetal, and muted amethyst dancing rhythmically across the canvas. Flickering in and out of our vision are the chance slippages left behind by Richterâs squeegee, punctuating the paintingâs textural topography through their staccato ridges, crests, and peaks of impasto, thus unveiling an intense interrogation of the very nature of paint and pigment. It is in this way that Abstraktes Bild, charged with a kinetic energy, is at once lofty and earthly, dynamic and static, cerebral and visceral, and ultimately undeniably arresting: âSeldom have colors so luxurious and so punishing appeared in the same painting, and seldom has the mediumâs hedonistic potential been so closely tied to its capacity for creating discomfort.â (Robert Storr, âGerhard Richter: Forty Years of Painting,â in: Exh. Cat., New York, Museum of Modern Art, Gerhard Richter: Forty Years of Painting, 2002, pp. 81-82)
Select Abstrakte Bilder from Anthony DâOffay Galleryâs 1991 Mirrors Exhibition in Museum and Prestigious Private collects ions
As evidenced by the conceptual rigor and aesthetic complexity of Abstraktes Bild, Richterâs abstract paintings have often been considered the culmination of the manifold lines of artistic and intellectual inquiry the artist has pursued throughout his career. Ceaselessly probings the limits and capabilities of visual cognition, Richterâs paintings have operated under the acute awareness of an innate human urge to locate patterns and construct.mes aning: âI just wanted to reemphasize my claim that we are not able to see in any other way. We only find paintings interesting because we always search for something that looks familiar to us. ⊠When we donât find anything, we are frustrated, and that keeps us excited and interested until we have to turn away because we are bored.â (the artist quoted in: Exh. Cat., New York, Museum of Modern Art, Gerhard Richter: Forty Years of Painting, 2002, p. 304) In this sense, Richter presents in Abstraktes Bild an endlessly mesmerizing question, one that compels viewers to persist in their search for understanding while it successfully evades straightforward interpretation. This provocative attitude, along with the expressive energy of the composition, recalls works by titans of abstract art such as Mark Rothko or Clyfford Still, while the dramatic contrast between bright and dark hues hints at a certain sense of the sublime found in Caspar David Friedrichâs German Romantic landscapes or J.M.W. Turnerâs sea storms. Much like how these masters expanded the expressive potential of painting, Richter introduces an inimitable artistic vision that realigns our understanding of abstract painting. Intellectually rigorous and captivatingly beautiful, Abstraktes Bild joins art historical predecessors in a rich dialogue redefining the boundaries of representation, illusion, and perception.
âA painting by Caspar David Friedrich is not a thing of the past. What is past is only the set of circumstances that allowed it to be painted: specific ideologies, for example. Beyond that, if it is any âgoodâ it concerns us â transcending ideology â as art that we consider worth the trouble of defending (perceiving, showing, making). It is therefore quite possible to paint like Caspar David Friedrich âtoday.ââ
Central to Abstraktes Bildâs capacity to deconstruct perception is the squeegee, which Richter uses to unlock compositional complexity, gestural energy, and the influence of serendipity in his canvasses. The traction of the hard-edged squeegee streaks and smears the pigment, at t.mes s piling onto and at others eroding away from each other, carrying with them scrapes, smudges, and incisions of various chromatic intensity. The resulting composition is a geologic cross-section of the myriad strata of paint, all varying in their density, viscosity, and color, the conclusion of incalculable permutations of mark-making brought about by the aleatory principles of the squeegeeâs application. This painterly process urges the viewer to respond with a visual excavation of sorts, unearthing the vestiges of paint that record every step of the paintingâs relentless transformation. Chance and unpredictability lie at the heart of Abstrakte Bilderâs compositions: âI want to end up with a picture that I havenât planned. This method of arbitrary choice, chance, inspiration and destruction may produce a specific type of picture, but it never produces a predetermined picture⊠I just want to get something more interesting out of it than those things I can think for myself.â (the artist quoted in: Hubertus Butin and Stefan Gronert, eds., Gerhard Richter: Editions 1965 - 2004: Catalogue RaisonnĂ©, Ostfildern-Ruit 2004, p. 36) Whereas abstraction is conventionally understood as a process of simplification or essentialization, Richter brings about a singular artistic vision in taking the opposite direction, underscoring the complexity of his tireless addition and application of layers in his meticulous composition; thus, Abstraktes Bild becomes a kaleidoscopic accumulation of color, a palimpsest that carries the records of the artistâs energetic painterly process.
Masterfully marrying his control of color with the arbitrary chance of the squeegee, Gerhard Richter underscores his virtuosic command over painting and innovative technique upon the picture plane. The breadth and depth that he brings to his painterly process have always been the artistâs most profound traits: âIn Richterâs works there is pleasure and pain, sly wit and high seriousness, but above all, there is a demonstration of the ways in which paintingâs resources are constantly replenished by the very problems it seems to pose, both for the painter and the viewer. Nobody in our own t.mes has posed them better or solved them more inventively than Richter.â (Glenn D. Lowry, âForeword,â in: Exh. Cat., New York, Museum of Modern Art, Gerhard Richter: Forty Years of Painting, 2002, p. 7) Abstraktes Bild foregrounds Richterâs singular capacity to weave together seemingly disparate venturesâastronomical allusions, cerebral interrogations, chromatic experimentation, and moreâto create a fabric of visual poetry that expands our conception of painting. A glimmering crescendo of prismatic hues, Abstraktes Bild stands as an emblem of the radical innovation and profound brilliance that solidified Gerhard Richterâs status as a visionary of contemporary art.
