Gerhard Richter
Royal Scottish Academy (RSA)
Edinburgh, Scotland
8th November 2008 – 4th January 2009

by Rea Cris

This is the first Gerhard Richter retrospective to be held in Scotland, assembled from five private collections and exhibiting an overview of the artist’s career from 1963 to the present.
It is argued that Richter is one of the most important artists of our time and has revived (or saved, depending on how you view it) the painterly technique. His paintings, both figurative and abstract, have had a huge influence on several artists. This exhibition presents some of the subject matter that Richter is known for: figurative photo-paintings, abstract works, light and shadow paintings, landscapes (both urban and rural) and seascapes.
Ritcher’s hallmark painting, the photo-painting of his daughter, “Betty” is not on exhibit, but for those who only know of Richter’s work on the surface, the exhibit does provide a rich array of his work.

Because Richter was obsessed with the materiality of paint, the exhibit demonstrates the process and stages he went through. While some of his paintings are made translucent to resemble photographic paper, others are overtly painterly with wormy, glistening paint. In the beginning of his career, the paintings focus more on figurative subjects, usually drawing inspiration or directly copying fractured images from newspapers, magazines or children’s books. “Mustang Squadron” resembles a green film still from a World War documentary. The sense of movement and speed is intensely felt and portrayed, more so than in any moving-picture medium. From 1988 to 1994, he moved towards abstract paintings and mirror and glass work. Looking at oneself through “11 Panes”, one resembles an individual in one of his paintings, blurry but just describable. Every artist that is obsessed with paint tackles the candle and Richter duly complies.

Richter’s abstracts are a bit hit and miss. Some are quite exquisite. “Yellow-Green” from 1982 is an abstract splatter painting with neon-bright colours which captures the essence of the 80s for me. “Red-Blue-Yellow (Reddish)” is an abstract canvas with hints of surrealism and fauvism. Other paintings offer any substance only to the artist making them, and makes a viewer feels stupid looking at them, such as his grey painting series, which seem like he has taken a roller over a canvas.

The exhibition is informative but perhaps too limited and small a selection of paintings. Richter cannot help but create preconceptions about his work and though the exhibition repels some of them, it does leave you hungry for some of his more ‘stereotypical’ paintings since they are such a wonder to behold in the flesh.

http://www.nationalgalleries.org/
http://www.gerhard-richter.com/