Storia della pittura (G. R.), 2023
GPO-1157
Hidtory of Painting
Pencil, collage, and gilt frame on digital print mounten on Dibond in plexiglas case
71 x 96 x 6 cm
Collection of the artist
Fourteen squares outlined in pencil on a photograph of the sky – arranged close to each other to form an orderly "painting gallery" – each contain a reproduction of a work by Gerhard Richter, on different subjects. At the centre of this “mosaic” is an empty gilt frame, whose internal dimensions echo the format of the various images.
The frame at the centre symbolically alludes to the idea of a painting: the framing of a scenic space, the physical delimitation of an immaterial dimension, extraneous to the spatiotemporal coordinates of the measurable reality: an ideal dimension, metaphorically represented by the sky. The faces that can be associated to this potential painting are countless: as many as the paintings in the history of art, recalled via the plurality of painting genres suggested by Richter's works (portraits, still lifes, landscapes, abstract images).
From left to right and from top to bottom:
• Gerhard Richter, Himalaya, 1968, oil on canvas, 200 x 160 cm, Daros Collection, Zurich.
• Gerhard Richter, Demo, 1997, oil on canvas, 62 x 62 cm, The Rachofsky Collection, Dallas.
• Gerhard Richter, Ema (Akt auf einer Treppe), 1966, oil on canvas, 200 x 130 cm, Museum Ludwig, Cologne.
• Gerhard Richter, Cage (1), 2006, oil on canvas, 290 x 290 cm, Tate Modern, London.
• Gerhard Richter, Lilien, 2000, oil on canvas, 68 x 80 cm, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.
• Gerhard Richter, Betty, 1977, oil on canvas, 30 x 40 cm, Museum Ludwig, Cologne.
• Gerhard Richter, Cage (6) in progress, 2006, oil on canvas, 300 x 300 cm, Tate, London.
• Gerhard Richter, 9 Nov. 1999, 1999, oil on colour photograph, 10.1 x 15 cm.
• Gerhard Richter, Vorhang III (hell), 1965, oil on canvas, 200 x 195 cm, Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museum zu Berlin, Berlin.
• Gerhard Richter, Selbstportrait, 1996, oil on canvas, 51 x 46 cm, Flowerman Collection, Tatsumi Sato.
• Gerhard Richter, Kerze, 1982, oil on canvas, 70 x 70 cm, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco.
• Gerhard Richter, Ella, 2007, oil on canvas, 40 x 31 cm, private collection.
• Gerhard Richter, Betty, 1988, oil on canvas, 102 x 72 cm, Saint Louis Art Museum, St. Louis.
• Gerhard Richter, Scheune, 1984, oil on canvas, 95 x 100 cm.
