Visited Gerhard Richter’s Panorama at the Tate last week. Contradictory. Was first struck by Aunt Marianne 1965, a painting of Richter as a baby in the arms of his Aunt, who was later euthanised by the Nazis, targeted because of her mental ill health. Next to this was a painting of Richter’s uncle in a Wehrmacht uniform. A powerful start to the exhibition. Many of Richters works are deliberately painted as blurred images – with my own respiration and movement it almost appeared as if they breathed.
My favourite rooms were Damaged landscapes and Grey Paintings and Colour Charts, again there was a sense of movement especially in the seascapes. Strangely an abstract painting of the Alps II 1968 made me feel unsettled. I was also happily irritated by his clouds, they were beautiful in their own right, yet frustratingly dull. His interest in the banal is shown throughout the exhibition and the fact he created over 25 paintings of candles in a 2 year period. From the late 1960’s to the mid 1970’s he worked a lot in grey monochrome so perhaps I was craving more colour, the following is taken from the exhibition leaflet:
‘He wrote at the time that grey ‘makes no statement whatsoever; it evokes neither feelings nor associations; it is really neither visible nor invisible… Grey is the welcome and only possible equivalent for indifference, noncommitment, absence of opinion, absence of shape.’ Years later he suggested another dimension to these works: ‘grey monochrome paintings [were] the only way for me to paint concentration camps. It is impossible to paint the misery of life, except maybe in grey, to cover it.’ [1]
Grey is matter of fact, it is the black and white of the newspaper print or the newspresenter’s autocue. It is stern and attempts the unemotional. Perhaps the represented power and the unknown of nature was threatening. Richter’s styles are very diverse if it wasn’t for palette and subject matter it would be easy to think they were made by more than one artist. He seems to be able to play and express his own contradictory interests, views and questions. It is as if the ease and ability at which he uses paint is his own personal joke or weapon to address the traumatic and the everyday.
Another blockbuster – I do visit other exhibitions I just happened to fancy a cycle to the river. No book just 3 postcards.
1. GODFREY. M, 2011, Gerhard Richter – Panorama, [Exhibition Leaflet], London: Tate Modern.
