Gerhard Richter is my favourite painter, my favourite living painter that is. The first painting of him I saw converted me into a fan of his. It was a painting of a copy of a copy of a squadron of Mustang bombers. They are small in size but malevolent, bent on doing evil.
In the Mood : The New Yorker
The other day, browsing The New York Times, I came upon a movie review of a recent documentary about him:
?Gerhard Richter Painting,? a Documentary - NYTimes.com
Clip: Gerhard Richter Painting - Video Library - The New York Times
As Herr Richter puts it so well:
“To talk about paintings is not only difficult but perhaps pointless too. You can only express in words what words are capable of expressing, What language can communicate painting has nothing to do with that…”
“Painting isn’t just a question of aesthetics, of painting pretty pictures , which perhaps isn’t very difficult”.
He is an extraordinary painter and also a profound thinker.
I haven’t seen the documentary, only the trailer. His huge abstractions are beautiful and his German is clearly spoken, his words precise, wise.
He is still having fun at 80. One of his students, who became a famous photographer said that he was opaque, not communicative. Perhaps because as he said, words are unable to communicate what painting is all about,
Someone gave me a book about him on some series of portraits he made. For some reason I threw it in the papers bin. This didn’t happen today or yesterday but a long, long time ago, but seems like yesterday.
His Panorama exhibition has moved to the Pompidou Centre in Paris, where one can see a favourite of mine Mustang Staffel (Mustang Squadron)
Also in Paris there is an exhibition of his work at the Louvre.
Gerhard Richter » Exhibitions » Gerhard Richter: Panorama