Untitled (Park)

The atmospheric palette, with ribbons of slate, orange and blue melting into kaleidoscopic rivulets, suggests a state of constant metamorphosis. Richter scraped and dragged this shimmering expanse across a photograph the artist took of a park in Cologne, and beneath the layers of paint, a wooded path can be seen. Through his painterly distortions and overlain pigments, Richter sought to question the perceived objectivity and truth-claims of photography. ‘I don’t mistrust reality, of which I know next to nothing’, Richter said. ‘I mistrust the picture of reality conveyed to us by our senses, which is imperfect and circumscribed’ (G. Richter, quoted in Gerhard Richter: Text. Writings, Interviews and Letters 1961-2007, London 2009, p. 60). In 1989, Richter embarked upon a series of overpainted landscape photographs, a genre which has continued to be a fundamental touchstone throughout his career. Together, he sees the melting pictorial layers as forming a new reality more honest than that which can be observed. ‘If the Abstract Paintings show my reality,’ said Richter, ‘then the landscapes and still-lifes show my yearning’ (G. Richter, ‘D. Elger, ‘Landscape as a Model’, Gerhard Richter: Landscapes¸ New York 1998, p. 21). To further underscore this relationship, Richter has begun to exhibit his landscapes and abstractions together. Individually fragmentary, together they reveal a more complete world view, an ethos captured by the liquifying, dazzling colours of Untitled (Park).