Gerhard Richter: painting after all

Abstract

Over the course of his 60-year career, Gerhard Richter (b. 1932) has employed both representation and abstraction as a means of reckoning with the legacy, collective memory, and national sensibility of post-Second World War Germany, in both broad and very personal terms. This book features approximately 100 of his key canvases, from photo paintings created in the early 1960s to portraits and later large-scale abstract series, as well as select works in glass. New essays by scholars address a variety of themes: Sheena Wagstaff evaluates the conceptual import of the artist's technique; Benjamin H. D. Buchloh discusses the poignant Birkenau paintings (2014); Peter Geimer explores the artist's enduring interest in photographic imagery; Briony Fer looks at Richter's family pictures against traditional painting genres and conventions; Brinda Kumar investigates the artist's engagement with landscape as a site of memory; Andre Rottmann considers the impact of randomization and chance on Richter's abstract works; and Hal Foster examines the glass and mirror works.

Contents

Introduction: The excavation of memory / Sheena Wagstaff -- Documents of culture, documents of barbarism: Richter's Birkenau paintings / Benjamin H. D. Buchloh -- Seeing one medium through another: Richter's photo paintings of the 1960s / Peter Geimer -- Chrono-technics: Richter's family pictures / Briony Fer -- Terrains of paint: Richter's landscapes / Brinda Kumar -- Randomizing painting: notes on Richter's abstractions / André Rottmann -- In a glass, darkly / Hal Foster.