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Gerhard Richter

Gerhard Richter, Liegestuhl II (Deck Chair II), 1965 Oil on canvas, 39 ⅜ × 78 ¾ inches (100 × 200 cm)© Gerhard Richter

Gerhard Richter, Liegestuhl II (Deck Chair II), 1965

Oil on canvas, 39 ⅜ × 78 ¾ inches (100 × 200 cm)
© Gerhard Richter

Gerhard Richter, Landschaft mit Wolke (Landscape with Cloud), 1969 Oil on canvas, 35 ⅞ × 33 ⅞ inches (91 × 86 cm)© Gerhard Richter

Gerhard Richter, Landschaft mit Wolke (Landscape with Cloud), 1969

Oil on canvas, 35 ⅞ × 33 ⅞ inches (91 × 86 cm)
© Gerhard Richter

Gerhard Richter, Stadtbild (Townscape), 1969 Amphibolin on canvas, 27 ¾ × 27 ¾ inches (70.5 × 70.5 cm)© Gerhard Richter

Gerhard Richter, Stadtbild (Townscape), 1969

Amphibolin on canvas, 27 ¾ × 27 ¾ inches (70.5 × 70.5 cm)
© Gerhard Richter

Gerhard Richter, Grau (Grey), 1970 Oil on canvas, 39 ⅜ × 31 ½ inches (100 × 80 cm)© Gerhard Richter

Gerhard Richter, Grau (Grey), 1970

Oil on canvas, 39 ⅜ × 31 ½ inches (100 × 80 cm)
© Gerhard Richter

Gerhard Richter, Adler (Eagle), 1972 Oil on canvas, 31 ½ × 23 ⅝ inches (80 × 60 cm)© Gerhard Richter

Gerhard Richter, Adler (Eagle), 1972

Oil on canvas, 31 ½ × 23 ⅝ inches (80 × 60 cm)
© Gerhard Richter

Gerhard Richter, Abstraktes Bild (Abstract Painting), 1986 Oil on canvas, 31 ⅜ × 26 ⅜ inches (82 × 67 cm)© Gerhard Richter

Gerhard Richter, Abstraktes Bild (Abstract Painting), 1986

Oil on canvas, 31 ⅜ × 26 ⅜ inches (82 × 67 cm)
© Gerhard Richter

Gerhard Richter, Abstraktes Bild (Abstract Painting), 1990 Oil on canvas, 48 ⅛ × 40 ¼ inches (122 × 102 cm)© Gerhard Richter

Gerhard Richter, Abstraktes Bild (Abstract Painting), 1990

Oil on canvas, 48 ⅛ × 40 ¼ inches (122 × 102 cm)
© Gerhard Richter

Gerhard Richter, Demo, 1997 Oil on canvas, 24 ⅛ × 24 ⅛ inches (62 × 62 cm)© Gerhard Richter

Gerhard Richter, Demo, 1997

Oil on canvas, 24 ⅛ × 24 ⅛ inches (62 × 62 cm)
© Gerhard Richter

Gerhard Richter, Cage 2, 2006 Oil on canvas, 118 ⅛ × 118 ⅛ inches (300 × 300 cm)© Gerhard Richter

Gerhard Richter, Cage 2, 2006

Oil on canvas, 118 ⅛ × 118 ⅛ inches (300 × 300 cm)
© Gerhard Richter

About

Gerhard Richter was born in 1932 in Dresden, Germany. Throughout his career, Richter has negotiated the frontier between photography and painting, captivated by the way in which these two seemingly opposing practices speak to and challenge one another. From exuberant canvases rendered with a squeegee and acerbic color charts to paintings of photographic detail and close-ups of a single brushstroke, Richter moves effortlessly between the two mediums, reveling in the complexity of their relationship, while never asserting one above the other.

Richter’s life traces the defining moments of twentieth-century history and his work reverberates with the trauma of National Socialism and the Holocaust. In the wake of the Second World War, Richter trained in a Socialist Realist style sanctioned by East Germany’s Communist government. When he defected to West Germany in 1961, a month before the Berlin Wall was erected, Richter left his entire artistic oeuvre up to that point behind. From 1961 to 1964—alongside Blinky Palermo and Sigmar Polke—Richter studied at the Staatliche Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, where he began to explore the material, conceptual, and historical implications of painting without ideological restraint.

Richter’s earliest paintings in Düsseldorf, stimulated by a fascination with current affairs and popular culture, responded to images from magazines and newspaper cuttings. Through the 1960s, Richter continued to address found and media images of subjects such as military jets, portraits, and aerial photographs. Notably, he reimagined family pictures he had smuggled from East Germany that included his smiling uncle Rudi, dressed in a Nazi uniform, and aunt Marianne, who Richter later discovered had been murdered in a mental institution during the Third Reich. Richter’s idiosyncratic technique of blurring made such complex moments of personal and social history seem to crackle with static, distancing the viewer from their subjects and casting doubt on the ability of painting to document in the same way as photography. In 1967, Richter was awarded the Junger Western art prize and began to expand his series of, what have come to be known as, Farbtafeln (Color Charts) (1966–2008) and Graue Bilder (Gray Paintings) (1966–2014). Richter was drawn to the tonal nuances of gray as well as the hue’s conceptual rigor—seemingly stripped of feeling and association. In 1972, Richter was chosen to represent West Germany at the Venice Biennale. That same year, he exhibited at Documenta in Kassel, Germany, where he showed again in 1977, 1982, and 1987.

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Fairs, Events & Announcements

Gagosian’s booth at Art Basel 2023. Artwork, left to right: © John Currin; © Rudolf Stingel; © 2023 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; © 2023 The Willem de Kooning Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; © Jonas Wood; © Anna Weyant; © Jenny Saville; © Cy Twombly Foundation. Photo: Sebastiano Pellion di Persano

Art Fair

Art Basel 2023

June 13–18, 2022, Hall 2, booth B15
Messe Basel
artbasel.com

Gagosian is pleased to participate in Art Basel 2023 with modern and contemporary works by gallery artists, as well as special entries in the Unlimited and Parcours sections of the fair.

Gagosian’s presentation in the main section of Art Basel represents the breadth and diversity of the gallery’s programming through work by artists including John Currin, Andreas Gursky, Simon Hantaï, Tetsuya Ishida, Jia Aili, Jamian Juliano-Villani, Ewa Juszkiewicz, Rick Lowe, Nathaniel Mary Quinn, Sarah Sze, Mary Weatherford, Anna Weyant, Rachel Whiteread, Stanley Whitney, and Jordan Wolfson, among others. Also featured are iconic works by Willem de Kooning, Gerhard Richter, Cy Twombly, and Andy Warhol.

Gagosian’s booth at Art Basel 2023. Artwork, left to right: © John Currin; © Rudolf Stingel; © 2023 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; © 2023 The Willem de Kooning Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; © Jonas Wood; © Anna Weyant; © Jenny Saville; © Cy Twombly Foundation. Photo: Sebastiano Pellion di Persano

Gerhard Richter’s  >> mood << (2022) installed at Gagosian Shop, London, January 10–March 4, 2023. Artwork © Gerhard Richter 2022. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd

Installation

Gerhard Richter
>> mood <<

January 10–March 4, 2023
Gagosian Shop, London

In a presentation organized in collaboration with the artist, Gerhard Richter’s >> mood << (2022), an edition of thirty-one photographic prints, will be on view at the Gagosian Shop in London’s historic Burlington Arcade. Installed upstairs on the first floor, the group documents a set of original small-format abstract works on paper exploring the controlled operation of chance and the relationship between image and reproduction. The project, which reflects Richter’s ongoing commitment to editioned works, was first exhibited alongside the paintings themselves at Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel, Switzerland, in 2022.

On view on the ground floor is an artist’s book about the mood series published by Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther und Franz König in a limited edition of 950 copies. This landscape-format volume reproduces the works on paper alongside a series of short aphorisms by the artist in English and German. Other publications by and on the artist will also be available.

Gerhard Richter’s  >> mood << (2022) installed at Gagosian Shop, London, January 10–March 4, 2023. Artwork © Gerhard Richter 2022. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd

Gagosian’s booth at Art Basel Miami Beach 2022. Artwork, left to right: © Gerhard Richter; © Amoako Boafo; © Richard Prince; © 2022 Judd Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; © Richard Diebenkorn Foundation; © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; © Stanley Whitney. Photo: Sebastiano Pellion di Persano

Art Fair

Art Basel Miami Beach 2022

December 1–3, 2022, booth D5
Miami Beach Convention Center
artbasel.com

Gagosian is pleased to present a selection of modern and contemporary works at Art Basel Miami Beach 2022. Returning to Miami for the fair’s twentieth anniversary, the gallery is honored to have participated each year the fair has been held.

Gagosian’s booth at Art Basel Miami Beach 2022. Artwork, left to right: © Gerhard Richter; © Amoako Boafo; © Richard Prince; © 2022 Judd Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; © Richard Diebenkorn Foundation; © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; © Stanley Whitney. Photo: Sebastiano Pellion di Persano

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Museum Exhibitions

Jordan Wolfson, Female Figure, 2014 © Jordan Wolfson. Photo: Markus Tretter, Kunsthaus Bregenz

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Transformers
Meisterwerke Der Sammlung Frieder Burda Im Dialog Mit Künstlichen Wesen

December 10, 2022–April 30, 2023
Museum Frieder Burda, Baden-Baden, Germany
www.museum-frieder-burda.de

This exhibition, whose subtitle translates to Masterpieces of the Frieder Burda Collection in Dialogue with Artificial Beings, offers visitors the opportunity to meet artist-made avatars—human machines that are able to move, talk, and learn—and observe the richness of their movements, language, and responses. By juxtaposing these beings with key works from the museum’s collection, Transformers aims to create multidimensional experiences that reflect our increasingly artificially transformed world. Work by Willem de Kooning, Pablo Picasso, Gerhard Richter, and Jordan Wolfson is included.

Jordan Wolfson, Female Figure, 2014 © Jordan Wolfson. Photo: Markus Tretter, Kunsthaus Bregenz

Installation view, Raum Für Phantasievolle Aktionen: Neupräsentation Der Sammlung, Kunstmuseum Bonn, Germany, May 8, 2022–January 31, 2023. Artwork © Albert Oehlen

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Raum Für Phantasievolle Aktionen
Neupräsentation Der Sammlung

May 8, 2022–January 31, 2023
Kunstmuseum Bonn, Germany
www.kunstmuseum-bonn.de

This exhibition, whose title translates to Space for Imaginative Actions, celebrates the museum’s thirtieth anniversary on the Museum Mile and brings together monographic and thematic works from more than forty artists. Work by Jadé Fadojutimi, Albert Oehlen, and Gerhard Richter is included.

Installation view, Raum Für Phantasievolle Aktionen: Neupräsentation Der Sammlung, Kunstmuseum Bonn, Germany, May 8, 2022–January 31, 2023. Artwork © Albert Oehlen

Installation view, Inferno, Scuderie del Quirinale, Rome, October 15, 2021–January 9, 2022. Artwork © Anselm Kiefer. Photo: Alberto Novelli

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Inferno

October 15, 2021–January 9, 2022
Scuderie del Quirinale, Rome
www.scuderiequirinale.it

This exhibition celebrates the Florentine poet Dante Alighieri, and the 700th anniversary of his death by gathering together two hundred artworks that investigate modern interpretations of the infernal universe, its landscapes, and its inhabitants. Work by Anselm Kiefer, Gerhard Richter, and Auguste Rodin is included.

Installation view, Inferno, Scuderie del Quirinale, Rome, October 15, 2021–January 9, 2022. Artwork © Anselm Kiefer. Photo: Alberto Novelli

Rachel Whiteread, Untitled, 2010, installation view, Flughafen Tempelhof, Berlin © Rachel Whiteread

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Diversity United
Contemporary European Art

June 9–October 10, 2021
Flughafen Tempelhof, Berlin
www.stiftungkunst.de

Presenting work by more than ninety established and emerging artists from thirty-four countries, Diversity United reflects the diversity and vitality of Europe’s contemporary art scene. The exhibition, which will travel to venues in Moscow and Paris, sheds light on subjects such as freedom, democracy, migration, territory, and political and personal identity. Work by Georg Baselitz, Anselm Kiefer, Gerhard Richter, Tatiana Trouvé, and Rachel Whiteread is included.

Rachel Whiteread, Untitled, 2010, installation view, Flughafen Tempelhof, Berlin © Rachel Whiteread

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