The exhibition Gerhard Richter: Abstraction, held at the Museum Barberini in Potsdam, focuses on works by the renowned German painter which reveal his abstract strategies and techniques.
Image: Gerhard Richter/R. Hansen
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Gerhard Richter and abstraction: Bright, bold and blurred
The exhibition at the Museum Barberini in Potsdam features some works by the famous German artist that have never been publically displayed. The show focuses on one of the celebrated artist's key themes: abstraction.
Image: Hubert Becker
'192 Colors' (1966)
Gerhard Richter was born in 1932 in Dresden. His mother, a librarian, was also a passionate piano player. Just like her, the painter developed a strong sense of harmony. He started his artistic career with explorations of non-figurative color compositions, such as this work, on show at the Museum Barberini in Potsdam.
Image: Gerhard Richter
'Quiet' (1986)
Major exhibitions have featured the works of Gerhard Richter, but none of them have focused on his abstract paintings, as the Museum Barberini's current show does. Abstraction takes different forms in Richter's oeuvre, from modifications on realist photos to pure textural paintings, such as this work from 1986.
Image: Gerhard Richter
'Red-Blue-Yellow' (1972)
Along with abstract forms, colors also play a central role in his work from the 1970s, following the tradition of his arts academy professor, Karl Otto Götz. Richter, however, also had black-and-white phases.
Image: Gerhard Richter
'Curtain' (1964)
At the beginning of his career, Richter used traditional paintbrushes for his small-format oil paintings. He later developed other techniques, spreading and scraping paint over huge canvases.
Image: Gerhard Richter
'256 Colors' (1974)
This work is another exploration of the contrasting effects of colors. The oil painting from 1974 is an impressive 2.22 by 4.14 meters (7.3 by 13.6 feet). It is part of the permanent collection of the Bonn Museum of Modern Art.
Image: Gerhard Richter/R. Hansen
'Two Fiats' (1964)
In his early works, Richter used photos from magazines and newspapers as models. This work, produced while he was still an art student in Düsseldorf, shows an almost abstract snapshot of two cars on a country road.
Image: Gerhard Richter
'Five Doors' (1967)
This oil painting is also based on a photograph. Richter often picked his motifs from advertising supplements or magazines. Here, a series of open doors in slightly different positions turns into an abstract pattern. The artist calls this method "panel painting."
Image: Gerhard Richter/Rheinisches Bildarchiv Köln
Self-portrait: 'Gerhard Richter' (1970)
As an artist and critical observer of his time, Gerhard Richter often explored political issues related to capitalism and popular culture, provocatively building in references to over-consumption and Germany's Nazi past in his works. He also included himself in some of his photographic works, such as this self-portrait from 1970.
Image: G. Richter 2017
Abstract Image (1984)
The Gerhard Richter paintings on show at the Museum Barberini, such as this one above from 1984, were borrowed from museums, large galleries and private collections. The exhibition "Gerhard Richter: Abstraction" is on show from June 6 though October 21 in Potsdam.
Image: Gerhard Richter
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The exhibition Gerhard Richter: Abstraction is held from June 30 through October 21 at the Museum Barberini, a new space that opened last year in a rebuilt palace in the historical center of Potsdam.
The show presents 90 of the German artist's works, spanning from the 1960s to this day.
The focus of the exhibition is abstraction — a leitmotiv in Richter's oeuvre, explains museum director Ortrud Westheider.
While the artist leaped through different phases over the decades, abstraction remained a constant element of his exploration. "Richter consciously steers the painting process through a calculated integration of coincidence in his work," said Westheider, mentioning for example his works with raster structures or his large-scale paintings in which he adds texture to layers of paint with a squeegee or a scraper.
The painter at work: a picture taken of Gerhard Richter in 1995Image: G. Richter 2017
Borrowed from international museums and private collections, some of the works on show are exhibited publicly for the first time. Among them are black-and-white photographic pictures, color boards, as well as his grey paintings and abstract paintings from the late 1970s.
Gerhard Richter's works have been shown in important retrospectives all over the world. New York's Museum of Modern Art had already featured him in a solo show in 2002.
To underline his 80th birthday, the Tate Modern in London, Berlin's New National Gallery and the Centre Pompidou in Paris celebrated the work of the German artist, and now the latest exhibition at the Museum Barberini can be added to this prestigious list.
