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Lot Essay
‘Abstract paintings are fictive models, because they make visible a reality that we can neither see nor describe, but whose existence we can postulate. We denote this reality in negative terms: the unknown, the incomprehensible, the infinite’ – Gerhard Richter
With its electric field of colour, Gerhart Richter’s Grün-Blau-Rot (Green-Blue-Red) is a spectacular example of the artist’s abstract practice. Painted in 1993, the work is part of a series of 115 paintings that Richter made in collaboration with Parkett magazine. Applying paint directly from the tube to the canvas, he pulled the pigments across the canvas using a squeegee, a signature technique developed during the 1980s. As a result of the squeegee’s pull, the neon charges fracture, glow, merge and obscure. For Richter, the uncontrollable consequences of the tool are a particular thrill; as curator Dietmar Elger noted, ‘For Richter, the squeegee is the most important implement for integrating coincidence into his art. For years, he used it sparingly, but he came to appreciate how the structure of paint applied with a squeegee can never be completely controlled. It thus introduces a moment of surprise that often enables him to extricate himself from a creative dead-end, destroying a prior, unsatisfactory effort and opening the door to a fresh start’ (D. Elger, Gerhard Richter: A Life in Painting, Chicago 2009, p. 251). As Richter created over a hundred iterations for the series, all with the same basic structure of three colours, the squeegee exploits and encourages difference between the canvases. The vivid pigments of Grün-Blau-Rot are distorted by the method, and the painting bears witness to the act of its own creation, celebrating the inherent properties of paint.
Widely recognized as one of the most important periods in Richter’s abstract practice, the 1980s and early 1990s were a time of great professional triumph. During the period, his first landmark retrospective in the United Kingdom was held at Tate Gallery, London in 1991; the following year, he presented work at Documenta IX. In 1993, the year of the present work, his critically-acclaimed touring retrospective travelled from Paris to Bonn, Stockholm and Madrid, and a new catalogue raisonné was published in conjunction to the show. Throughout this international attention, abstract painting retained its visual and intellectual appeal, and these works are the manifestation of Richter’s belief in art as a symbol: ‘I can... see my abstracts as metaphors… pictures that are about a possibility of coexistence. Looked at in this way, all that I am trying to do in each picture is to bring together the most disparate and mutually contradictory elements, alive and viable, in the greatest possible freedom’ (G. Richter in an interview with Benjamin Buchloh, 1986, reprinted in G. Richter, The Daily Practice of Painting: Writings and Interviews 1962-1993, London, 1995, p. 166). Freedom, in Grün-Blau-Rot, takes the form of self-determination as the squeegeed ribbons and blazing ripples chart their own explosive and instinctive course.
With its electric field of colour, Gerhart Richter’s Grün-Blau-Rot (Green-Blue-Red) is a spectacular example of the artist’s abstract practice. Painted in 1993, the work is part of a series of 115 paintings that Richter made in collaboration with Parkett magazine. Applying paint directly from the tube to the canvas, he pulled the pigments across the canvas using a squeegee, a signature technique developed during the 1980s. As a result of the squeegee’s pull, the neon charges fracture, glow, merge and obscure. For Richter, the uncontrollable consequences of the tool are a particular thrill; as curator Dietmar Elger noted, ‘For Richter, the squeegee is the most important implement for integrating coincidence into his art. For years, he used it sparingly, but he came to appreciate how the structure of paint applied with a squeegee can never be completely controlled. It thus introduces a moment of surprise that often enables him to extricate himself from a creative dead-end, destroying a prior, unsatisfactory effort and opening the door to a fresh start’ (D. Elger, Gerhard Richter: A Life in Painting, Chicago 2009, p. 251). As Richter created over a hundred iterations for the series, all with the same basic structure of three colours, the squeegee exploits and encourages difference between the canvases. The vivid pigments of Grün-Blau-Rot are distorted by the method, and the painting bears witness to the act of its own creation, celebrating the inherent properties of paint.
Widely recognized as one of the most important periods in Richter’s abstract practice, the 1980s and early 1990s were a time of great professional triumph. During the period, his first landmark retrospective in the United Kingdom was held at Tate Gallery, London in 1991; the following year, he presented work at Documenta IX. In 1993, the year of the present work, his critically-acclaimed touring retrospective travelled from Paris to Bonn, Stockholm and Madrid, and a new catalogue raisonné was published in conjunction to the show. Throughout this international attention, abstract painting retained its visual and intellectual appeal, and these works are the manifestation of Richter’s belief in art as a symbol: ‘I can... see my abstracts as metaphors… pictures that are about a possibility of coexistence. Looked at in this way, all that I am trying to do in each picture is to bring together the most disparate and mutually contradictory elements, alive and viable, in the greatest possible freedom’ (G. Richter in an interview with Benjamin Buchloh, 1986, reprinted in G. Richter, The Daily Practice of Painting: Writings and Interviews 1962-1993, London, 1995, p. 166). Freedom, in Grün-Blau-Rot, takes the form of self-determination as the squeegeed ribbons and blazing ripples chart their own explosive and instinctive course.