by Mahdi SHADKAR

Gerhard Richter in Centre Pompidou – Paris

Gerhard Richter exhibition came to Centre Pompidou in Paris in 2012. I visited this exhibition twice, and I took some photos and videos. The exhibition poster was the famous ‘blur photo-painting’ Betty 1988 © Gerhard Richter 2012

Gerhard Richter – ‘Panorama’
Centre Pompidou
June 6 – September 24, 2012

I found three favorite styles in the Richter’s artworks :

1. Photo-paintings and the Blur
2. Abstract works
3. Color Chart paintings

Although his sculptures are interesting as well, but I guess his three styles were more unique.

1.

Personalized, hand-made, Photoshop filter of Richter

Richter painted lots of photo-paintings. Photos based on variety of themes and sources : from newspapers and books, sometimes incorporating their caption, also he took lots of photos of his wife and his daughter Betty.

Many of these paintings are made in a multi step process of representations. He starts with a photograph, which he has found from somewhere or taken himself, and projects it onto his canvas, where he traces it for exact form. Taking his color palette from the photograph, he paints to replicate the look of the original picture. His hallmark “blur” is sometimes a softening by the light touch of a soft brush, sometimes a radical way. In some paintings blurs and brush touches are severe enough to disrupt the image and perturb the subject. it becomes hard to understand or believe. The subject is nullified. In these paintings, images and symbols (such as landscapes, portraits, and news photos) are rendered fragile illusions.

Richter continued painting pictures from black-and-white photographs during the 1960s and early 1970s to ridicule the act of painting with details.

2.

The phenomenon of perception : Large-format abstract paintings of Richter

This is his abstraction approach. When Richter wants to draw realistic paintings with details, photo-painting approach would be a shortcut to criticize classic painting. Although his perception feelings would translate to large-format abstract toile, the largest of it’s kind.

3.

High resolution colored pixels of Richter

When I saw his color charts, the first thing came to my mind, was a high resolution display with variant colored pixels. Only Richter, the king of large-format toile, could do this. Color chart with different presentation, like ‘pixels’ , ‘strips’ and etc.

My video in front of ‘Color Strips’ masterpiece, by Richter