r e s e a r c h pa p e r / u n i t o n e

Maximilian Str a sser

m a f i n e a rt / 2 0 1 1

c a m b e r w e l l c o l l e g e o f a rt s

u g ly st r e etc o st u m e @ g m x . d e
H o w d o e s t h e G e r m a n pa i n t e r

G e r h a r d R i ch t e r t ry to

av o i d c o n t e n t i n h i s w o r k ,

a n d t o w h at e x t e n t

does he succeed ?
abstr act

This essay deals with the German Painter Gerhard Richter,

which is one of the most successful living artists. He is a

painter who does not regard himself in a system of

intentions, beliefs, conventions and traditions. He does not

embed himself in an ideology. He is an opportunist, maybe

a protester. Richter is interested in the image, the surface,

but not in the content, the subject of an image. This essay

deals with his avoidance of content in his work. Richter is

doing art since 1960 (officially). In this 50 years he produced

a very diverse range of works, almost exclusively painting.

This essay analyses the reasons for his intention to libera-

te himself from content in his art, and situates him in the

political, historical and artistic context. Furthermore it points

out all the different methods Richter uses to avoid content.

The essay also contains visual examples of his work, and uses

quotes of Richter himself, and other related people, to support

his approach and make clear his attitude. Moreover this essay

analyses, whether Richter is successful in the execution of his

intention and dissects the functionality of his methods. Finally

there is a conclusion of the written material, and a personal

summarising statement.

Intention

Context

Methods

Success

Conclusion
THE DICTATORSHIP OF APPEARANCE
The painter Gerhard Richter - born in 1932 in Dresden - is one
of the world‘s most important and most popular contemporary
artists. His work reflects an attitude, certain distance, and so is
full of contradictions. Richter is a painter who does not regard
himself following a system of intentions, beliefs, conventions
and traditions. He does not embed himself in an ideology, he is
just trying to avoid it. As a painter he is interested in the image,
the surface, but not in the content, the subject of an image. In
1989, he highlighted this by claiming: ‘Appearance is the theme
of my life.’ (Gerhard Richter, 1989) But anyone describing
appearance as a life theme distances himself automatically from
the content that any (figurative) image holds. ‘I have nothing to
say, and I‘m saying it.’ ( John Cage, 1961) This statement by the
composer John Cage seems to be Richters ideology, though he
would attack the word ideology in connection with himself. An-
yone, who has listened to “4 minutes 33 seconds“ by John Cage,
is aware of the consistency with which he sait this. However, to
transmit nothing in painting is not an easy task, because painting
can, it seems, only exist by the presence of something - the con-
tent. This essay deals with this contradiction, it tries to analyse
the methods of Gerhard Richter, the origin of his attitude, and
the implementation of his intentions. At the end, there stands a
question of whether it is possible to make art without content,
or whether it is bound to it in order to exist at all.
The origins of Richter´s attitude can probably be found
in his biography. Born in the GDR, Richter grew up in a socialist
system, full of ideology, manipulation, and contradiction. At the
age of 16 he began an apprenticeship as a scene painter and com-
mercial painter. After 1952, in the self-conception of the govern-
ment, the GDR was characterized as the first German “socialist
state of workers and peasants“, elections served the legitimacy
of the SED, but were manipulated from the beginning. At this
time Richter was 20 years old, and experienced how quickly an
ideology can become a dictatorship. In 1952, he was accepted
at the Dresden Academy of Art to study painting. From 1957 to
1961 Richter operated as a master student at the Academy and
began painting with state-briefs of the GDR. Here he was forced
to produce state-accommodating and ideologically correct
images, according to the ideas of the party (SED). For him the
painting itself becomes ideology. Richter always looked at the
content of the image sceptically, the image as carrier of meaning.
In 1961 he managed to escape to West-Germany. From 1961 to
1964 he studied at the Düsseldorf Art Academy under Karl Otto
Götz. As a student in Düsseldorf Gerhard Richter met Sigmar
Polke, Konrad Fischer-Lueg and Blinky Palermo, with whom
he worked intensively in the following years. Gerhard Richter
believed in the renewal of the traditional medium of painting at
a time, when many other artists dealt with the performance and
the ready-made object. Together with Polke and Fischer-Lueg
the artist established the group of “capitalist realism“. With Lueg,
Richter introduced himself to the art dealer Ileana Sonnabend
as the “German Pop Artists“ in spring 1963 in Paris. The artist
preferred to process images from the mass media, greatly influ-
enced by American Pop artists like Roy Lichtenstein and Andy
Warhol. Richter wanted to resolve his art from the art historical
traditions. His work proves especially its artistic qualities, rather
than referring to art historical traditions. For Richter their visual
presence, their appearance is in the foreground, not the image as
meaning. During this time he also started to use photographs as
a template. As a result he created work that questions the image
in all ways, holding on to the painting. His central theme is non-
compliance with continuity, the inconsistency, a frowned and
socially unpopular attribute, not only in the GDR. Nevertheless,
in some characteristics of his paintings one seems to be able to
draw conclusions about his formative time in the GDR. One of
them is blurring, serving to uniform things amongst others. As
well as the non existence of hierarchy in his templates, which
apparently are randomly chosen. He said in 1966:
I pursue no intentions, no system, no direction. I have no
program, no style, no intent. I have no regard for specialist
problems, for work themes, variations aiming for a master-
ship. I flee all commitment, I do not know what I want, I
am unreliable, indifferent, passive, I like the indefinite and
the boundless and constant uncertainty. Other characteris-
tics serve performance, publicity, success, and are, in any
case, as outdated as ideologies, views, concepts and names
for things. (Richter, 1997, sect. 8)
To dissolve the content of his paintings, Gerhard Richter has
developed various methods. Probably the most important is
the selection of templates, which ultimately form his painting
(with the exception of abstract images, which are generated
without template). When looking at his complete work, one can
see, that Richters paintings are primarily about alienation, and
even the denial of photographically captured content. The use
of seemingly randomly selected photographic models as a motif
for his paintings discharge him - to a certain degree - of perso-
nal responsibility for the content, and also for the image itself.
Subject, composition, detail have been previously set by another
instance. Thus Richter functions only as the translator into the
medium of painting. With the advent of this position in 1962,
the “Werksverzeichnis“ (catalogue raisonné) begins, which
continues still. The previous pictures have no importance for
the artist. He has even destroyed most of them - what remains is
only the photographic documentation.
In 1962, I found a solution by copying photographs which
absolved me from choosing or constructing a subject.
While it is true that I had to pick the photographs, I was
able to do so in a way, where I could avoid identifying with
the subject.(Richter, 1993, p.120)
The choice of topics varies from a portrait of Adolf Hitler to tri-
vial advertising motifs. Here one can clearly recognize parallels
to Andy Warhol‘s choice of subjects - the coexistence of different
contents from Kennedy to the famous Campbell Can (also
1962). However, Richter does not stay with one topic, does not
proceed any further, like Warhol did. Richter ambles around -
apparently disoriented - between different image genres.
His portraits range from passport photo-like paintings such as
“Portraits Dr. Knobloch“, the effigy Prince Philipp Wilhelm -
with whom he quotes a historical picture of the 18th century,
up to “48 Portraits”, a portrait series based on templates from
dictionaries. One finds still-lifes, landscapes, cityscapes along-
side politically loaded images like the “Zyklus 18 Oktober 1977“
(Cycle 18th October 1977). An interview with Rolf-Gunther
Dienst indicates:
You work from photographic originals. How do you find your
subjects?
Perhaps the choice is a negative one, in that I was trying to
avoid everything that touched on well-known issues – or
any issues at all, whether painterly, social or aesthetic. I
tried to find nothing too explicit, hence all the banal sub-
jects; and then, again, I tried to avoid letting the banal turn
into my issue and my trademark. So it‘s all evasive action, in
a way. (Gerhard Richter. 2008, page. 54)
By looking at the titling we see another way to escape from the
subject, namely the anonymisation of the title.
The cycle “Zyklus 18 Oktober 1977“ includes images of the
Baader-Meinhof group. The neutral titling of the individual
pictures is notable, which seems to distance themselves from all
the historical weight of the subject.
Jugendbildnis / Youthful portrait,
Tote / Dead (triptych),
Gegenüberstellung / comparison (triptych),
Erhängte / Hanged
Erschossener (1) / Shooting victim (1),
Erschossener (2) / Shooting victim (2),
Plattenspieler / Record player,
Festnahme / Cell arrest (diptych),
Beerdigung / Funeral.
This method can also be found in other pictures, but this cycle is
a prime example of this. Richter decides to demonstrate of these
historical images, but he cuts their context and their content by
making them individual elements of the cycle with anonymised
titles. Thus, he seems to withdraw himself from the responsi-
bility for these pictures. Moreover, it shows the neutrality with
which Richter sees his pictures, and affirms his position, that for
someone who produces images, the impression and the sight is
the most important, not the content.
Within the painting itself, it seems as he would like to conce-
al the content by using his blurring technique, which is very
typical to him. Once an image is finished, he wipes over the wet
paint with a dry brush, blurring the contour, and the result is
reminiscent to the motion-blur in photography. This technique,
which often makes the picture unrecognizable, removes the typi-
cal attributes of painting from it, such as visible marks, haptically
perceptible paint, and takes off the personal mark from the artist.
At the same time he assimilates the painting to the photogra-
phy. By doing this, Richter seems to want to enlarge upon, how
elusive reality is. He obscures the content, making it difficult to
capture and understand. Furthermore he takes away the indi-
viduality, one might say, he neutralizes, uniforms and dissolves
any hierarchy from the image.
I blur things to make everything equally important and
equally unimportant. I blur thing so that they do not look
artistic or craftsmanlike but technological, smooth and per-
fect. I blur things to make all the parts a closer fit. Perhaps
I also blur out the excess of unimportant information.
(Gerhard Richter. 2008, p. 33)
It also seems that he has a fear of the concrete and the defined.
Probably the most consistent implementation of
prevention of the content can be found in Richter‘s abstract
paintings, which also make up the bulk of his complete works.
Most of the abstract images also employ the above mentioned
wipe-technique, which is either carried out with the brush, or
with a squeegee. Paint is applied on the canvas, and then blurred,
usually in a single motion over the entire width of the canvas.
Here as well, every area of ​​the canvas is treated the same. There
is no hierarchy within the image, nothing important or unim-
portant. Indeed there are abstract pieces of Richter, that contain
more structure in them than pure blurring, but here also the
gaze of the observer promenades over the image, without fixed
reference point, without a protagonist of the image, only by an
evenly distributed interaction of color and form.
In 1970 he created the first abstract, monochrome gray
images. If one trusts in the order of his “Werkverzeichnis“ (cata-
logue raisonné), they seem to arise directly from the context of
the delineation of nature. In fact, the step from reduced lands-
capes to complete nonrepresentational paintings is a very short
one. We see this also by looking at William Turner and Herbert
Brandl. Here monochrome painting and expressive gestural
painting seem directly related. The spectrum of gray paintings
is enormous. It ranges from absolutely smooth monochrome
surfaces of paint, to the finest, subtle reliefs teased out with a
small brush, up to paintings roughly executed with big brushes
and squeegees. The curator and museum director of the Museum
in Mönchengladbach Abteiberg Johannes Cladders pointed out
at the “Graue Bilder“ (Gray Paintings) exhibition 1974, the mo-
nochrome gray paintings define a new stage in Richter´s oeuvre:
In these paintings, gray is used in a totally different way
than it was in the photo-paintings before and after 1966, or
in the paintings of cities and mountains. It is not attached
to a specific object – banal though it might be – neither is it
divided into its black and white components as is the case
in other gray-tone pictures. There are no particular external
references. It only brings itself into the picture. Here, gray
is a doughy substance that allows for painterly differentia-
tions, but they are barely visible and therefore very difficult
 to actually define. In these paintings, Richter achieves a
very high degree of indifference, coolness and distance.
Thanks to these reductive measures, the material reality
of the paintings becomes all the more noticeable. In this
sense, the gray pictures paradigmatically mirror Richter´s
work and intentions. (Richter G., 2005: p17)
Another step towards indifference and refusal to testify was
the inclusion of mirrors in Richter´s work at the beginning of
the 80s. In this case, Richter even dissolves himself from the
medium of painting, to be able to make his statement of non-
statement. The step to include the mirror, however, is not a big
one. Monochrome paintings clearly show the brush stroke,
the flow, because the eye is not distracted by different colours.
What one sees, ultimately, is the embossment of the colour that
reflects light, depending on the environment and lighting. So the
image is able to re-invent itself at every different location. Not
the artist makes the statement - he only creates the basis for it -
but the picture in interaction with the environment. To take this
step further, the transition to the mirror is logical, as the mirror
meets these requirements much better.
One facet of his work which is not often mentioned
in the context with Richter is the overpainting of photographs.
However, exactly this genre shows the avoiding of content -
perhaps even fear of content - very clearly. Most of these over-
painted pictures are in a small format. In parts the overpainting
reminds of fragments from his abstract images. The overpainting
is usually limited to simple painting gestures, but also blurs,
which seem accidentally, randomly, but at the same time
very controlled.
But randomness also plays a central role in the work of
Richter. In the embodiment of abstract images, and the blurring-
technique in general, the result is only very bounded controlla-
ble and predictable. However, one finds randomness again in a
different method, if one engages with the colour-patch-paintings
of Richter. What looks like excerpts of a colour fan, or colour
charts, is the result of a conscious use of randomness as me-
thod. The colour mixture for all colour patches is appointed by
drawing lots, and then mixed individually for each colour field.
Thereby Richter consciously abdicates from his power of decisi-
on about the final outcome of his paintings, he lets coincidence
decide. With this method he affronts constructive art, to which
the principle is alien, that every colour is replaceable through
another.
In 1985 he notes:
The colour charts: the hope that they produce a picture
which is more than I could possibly ever invent. At the
same time, an adamant rejection of painting that leaves
itself up to chance, such as painting blindly or under the
influence. (Gerhard Richter, 2005, p.91)
Interestingly he hopes, that THEY produce, not him - random-
ness as method. With the same method the colour arrangements
for the window of the ‘Kölner Dom’ (Cologne Cathedral) were
left to chance by Richter. He implements the request from the
City of Cologne - to design the windows of the cathedral - with
the same random order, but this time using a computer. 11.263
coloured glass squares are now decorating the window of the
Cathedral in Cologne, and dip the interior in a sea of colours,
whilst the sun is shining through. However, a documentary
(Gerhard Richter. Das Kölner Domfenster, 2007) reveals that
this was not completely random. In this film, Richter tries to
relativise the chaos of the random generator, by comparing diffe-
rent designs, and replacing some squares with other colours.
Furthermore unconsciousness plays an important
role in the work of Richter. He has affirmed many times, that he
prefers unconsciousness to intellect.
To substantiate this thesis, there are two quotes of Richter:
 Although I am in constant despair about my inability, the
impossibility of accomplishing something, of painting a va-
lid, proper painting, above all of knowing what such a pain-
ting should look like, I always hope that precisely this could
at some point happen, that something could come out of
this perseverance. This hope is often fed with the fact that,
in places, in a modest way, something does indeed emerge,
something which reminds one of the longed for object,
or gives one a notion of what it might be, Often enough
tough, I was only fooled, that which I momentarily saw
disappeared and left nothing behind but the usual. I have
no motive, only motivation. I believe that motivation is the
essential, the natural, and that motive is old-fashioned, yes,
reactionary (stupid like the question of the meaning of life)
(Richter, 1996, sect. 11)
Any consideration that I implement in order to ‚build‘ an
image, is wrong, and if the execution succeeds, then only
because I destroy it in parts or because it works anyway, by
not disturbing and looking like as if it was planned. (Ger-
hard Richter, 2009)
Richter lets things happen, then evaluates, whether the sub-
conscious decision was the right one, or a blind alley. Again, he
seems to leave the decision-making within another instance, an
unconscious one, that is not acting rationally controlled, but
one, that is fed by feelings, hopes, and the motivation of being
able to accomplish something, that is larger as something which
the conscious mind could ever manage.
The modes of action in Richters work are as various as his me-
thods. The selection of an image, the selection of a template is
automatically the selection of content. A photographic content
is not just about colour and form, it is also about the content of
the image. Particularly the precision of Richter‘s works transfers
all qualities of photography into painting, because what dis-
tinguishes a photo from all the other images is preserved, even
if the image surface is oil on canvas. Therefore it is completely
painting.
The blurring can not disguise the content, unless the
content is obscured into abstraction, and the communication
of the image does not go beyond the game between colour and
form, which is also content, but one which is only justified by
the painting itself. The case is similar in the over-painted pho-
tographs, which transport content as well, as long as something
can be revealed in the images. When overpainting alienates the
images´ content so far that one can not distinguish anything, it
meets the claim of taking the function - as carrier of meaning -
from the image. The titling of the images is probably one of the
most ineffective methods of the painter, but shows his intentions
very clearly. Richter certainly is aware of that and sees the func-
tionality rather in the theory than in practice. Just the ratio, the
discrepancy between titling, image content, and the knowledge
of the viewer, though, builds the tension that form many of his
pictures. Especially the cycle 18th October 1977 contains this
tension. One maybe tends to insinuate sensationalism to Rich-
ter, but just to execute and to show his method of equalization,
of absence of hierarchy, he has to make politically loaded images
next to trivial, banal ones. He has to work in the extreme - in the
individual elements of his work - to produce neutrality in the
complete work. The requirement of Richter, to meet the claim of
avoiding content is certainly achieved best in his abstract works.
Through no other method, Richter reduces painting as much on
painting itself. Nothing is communicated but painting, because
the intrinsic effect of colour and shape, and the inclusion of
randomness in the process of painting allows Richter, to get
something unplanned, something not consciously conceived at
the end. Thereby he only adverts to painterly content, without
permitting another to exist. His gray images are in the same way
successful. But Richter detached himself quickly from them,
as they are too definite to built on them further. Even with the
colour field paintings Richter is widely successful in avoiding
content. The viewer is not, as with the images that arise from
photographs, confronted with the content of an image. However
the plan, the method, namely the artificially built accident has
also to be regarded as a methodical content. This content does
not only consist of the painting itself but moreover of a mathe-
matical, stochastic one.
Richter is one of the most successful artists of our time. This
does not prove his qualities as an artist, but it proves that his
intentions and his attitude are debatable, and that they have a
contemporary relevance. One either hates him or loves him - this
has already emerged in several conversations.
His lack of style is the most damning criticism. An artist who
apparently has no artistic corporate identity, who does not make
himself a brand whose contents are clearly defined, and from
whom one knows what to expect, is a bit uncanny, but in my opi-
nion, conceptualism, since Duchamp, needs at least one artist,
whose concept is the anti concept. Of course this is a contradic-
tion, but only Conceptual artists are scared of contradiction, and
antinomy. In one of the essay-tutorials Richter was interestingly
called a “Chameleon“. That would be understandable if the
chameleon recolours always in the complementary colour of its
surrounding world. I understand his posture as an anti-attitude,
as opportunism. He is certainly aware of the impossibility to
convey absolutely no position, absolutely no content. Not
having any attitude is also an attitude - not having an ideology
is an ideology. Just from this inability comes his creative power,
which now has lasted 50 years, and does not seem to go. He
knows he will never arrive. And trying to follow this utopia
reflects the courage and consistency (even if he disclaims this
attribute) of Richter´s work. He wants to distance himself from
all the motives, themes, history and cultural traditions defined
as the precondition for his paintings. For this reason, he needs to
accurately respond to each of those elements, must refer to any
aspect of painting, to neutralize it in the seemingly all-embracing
mass of his work. The Werksverzeichnis (catalogue reisonné)
does not even make a difference between abstract and figurati-
ve work. He may communicate content in some aspects of his
work, but in the contemplation of his complete works, one only
finds his attitude, which is the attitude of detachment and aloof-
ness. Regardless of whether Richter was and is successful in all
matters by the implementation of his intention to avoid content
- he was certainly not; yet he could and can make his position in
any case clear, with the totality of his work. He could not mana-
ge to distance himself completely and in all areas from content in
his work. I think it is impossible for a figurative painter, but is it
not a privilege of the artist to try the impossible, to communica-
te nothing, emptiness, silence? The attitude has become clear: ‘I
have nothing to say, and I‘m saying it.’
B i b l i o g r a p h y:

Buchloh B., (2009), Gerhard Richter Das Kölner Domfenster (2009)

Gerhard Richter - October Files Corinna Belz
America: Germany,
MIT Press Buchhandlung Walther König
30 min.
Cladders J., (1974)
Gerhard Richter Graue Bilder Visual references
Mönchengladbach, Germany (o r d e r o f a p p e a r e n c e i n t h e t e x t )
Städtisches Museum Abteiberg
Richter G.
Richter G, (2005), Without Colour, IN: Reinhard Spieler, (1988)
Gerhard Richter - Ohne Farbe / Without Colour, Dead / Catalogue Raisonné: 667-1
Ostfildern-Ruit / Germany: Oil on canvas
Hantje Canz Verlag 62 cm X 67 cm
http://www.gerhard-richter.com/art/paintings/photo_pain-
Richter G., (1996/1997), IN: Peter Weiermair, tings/detail.php?7687
Gerhard Richter Paintings/Malerei,
Bolzano / Italy: Richter G.
Museion Museum of Modern Art (2006)
Cage 1 / Catalogue Raisonné: 897-1
Richter G., (2008), Dietmar Elger & Hans Ulrich Obrist, Oil on canvas
Text from 1961 to 2007, 290 cm x 290 cm
Cologne / Germany: http://www.gerhard-richter.com/art/paintings/abstracts/
Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König detail.php?13796#

Wilke K. M., (1976), Richter G.

Bundesrepublik Deutschland und (1968)
Deutsche Demokratische Republik: Untitled (Grey) / Catalogue Raisonné: 194-6
Grundlagen und Probleme des gegenseitigen Oil on canvas
Verhältnisses der beiden deutschen Staaten 50 cm x 50 cm
Germany: http://www.gerhard-richter.com/art/paintings/abstracts/
Duncker und Humblot detail.php?6041

Richter G., (1993) Richter G.

Gerhard Richter Text Schriften und Interviews, (1988)
Frankfurt am Main / Germany Untitled
Hans-Ulbricht Obrist Oil on Photograph
10.2 cm x 15.2 cm
I have nothing to say and I´m saying it (1989) http://www.gerhard-richter.com/art/overpainted-photo-
Vivian Perlis graphs/detail.php?13529
55.min
Richter G.
Richter G. (2009), IN: kultur-online 1974
Arbeit an den Grundfragen der Malerei, 256 Colours / Catalogue Raisonné: 352-3
Internet, Kultur-Online, Oil on canvas
Available from 222 cm x 414 cm
<http://www.kultur-online.net/?q=node/6886&nlb=1&p=1> http://www.gerhard-richter.com/art/paintings/abstracts/
Accessed: 13.3.2011 detail.php?6067