Random blobs of paint splattered everywhere. Remarkable skill indeed! It must have taken many, many years of careful, masterful, thoughtful, deliberate brushstrokes to achieve the desired look, and must be worth tens of millions.
It makes Leonardo da Vinci look like an amateur. Definitely indistinguishable from an artist's dirty paint-stained apron or wipecloth.
Staring at them for a long time must be what it must feel like to have late stage Alzheimer's disease. Absolute genius.
13
I really hope I can get to NYC before this exhibition ends. I have enjoyed the MetBreuer very much and am deeply saddened that it can’t be afforded. Isn’t there a billionaire around who might want to pick up the tab?
10
Love the term "digital Savonarolas".
8
Great article about a superb artist!
13
Excellent review. Richter captures the essence of the German post-war soul. The melancholy, the grayness, the oppressiveness, the layers of guilt, the blurriness of memory. He painted the reason why I left Germany as soon as I could. My throat closed and I had flashbacks when I was in room 1, 4th floor!
19
What a thoughtful and beautiful review, thank you. Saw the show at MOMA years ago. Loved the scrape paintings, but could never quite figure out why. (Not that i really needed to.) And now you've given me something to ponder. So sorry that I likely won't make it to this final show.
5
Thank you Mr Farago and the New York Times for a great article about an artist I never really new.
5
"I don’t know. I’m not sure. I’m still thinking. I’m still working." I think this is the fundamental ethos that all visual artists should have. Unfortunately, in today's art world this doesn't translate well since it requires thinking and reflection for both the makers and the audience.
20
I was working at the Art Gallery of Ontario in 1988, during a large exhibit of Mr. Richter's work. I was able to spend considerable time amongst his paintings during that spring, and I still remember the feeling of awe and transcendence that I experienced standing in front of his large abstract canvasses. One piece in particular was in a smaller side gallery, and I often spent my lunch hour alone in front of it, in a sort of reverie. Being enveloped in that vortex of visual music was the closest I have ever come to understanding synethesia.
19
This is one of the big reasons I subscribe to the New York Times. It has been some time since I've made it to an art museum. These articles on living artists are a far, far better experience than the forgettable posts on Instagram.
28
Thank you, Jason Farago, for your in-depth and moving review of Gerhard Richter's exhibit. Gracias as well for your marvelous writing for the Jan Van Eyck's exhibit in Ghent, Belgium. I shared the review with friends.
I've viewed Gerhard Richter's work at two different exhibits over the years in San Francisco. Unforgettable. Seeing him again through your eyes and words is such a gift. I particularly value your insights regarding his doubting and steadfast refusal to accept dogma/certainty in art (or Life for that matter). Refreshing and needed today in such a polarized world.
If I may, you refer to Richter as "the greatest living artist" … reminding me of the Times review by Karl Ove Knausgaard re: Anselm Kiefer who called him that as well. Surely there is room for both blessing us with their works as they near the final passage. Kiefer seems to hold a measure of strength even comfort from the forests of his youth carried forth to make brave art amid history's horrors. Richter growing up in Dresden such a contrast. / I've saved your Van Eyck review to gaze and read when I need comfort and strength.
Your work makes the subscription worthwhile. thank you.
34
Thanks for this nice writeup. Richter will be very much missed.
4
Mr. Farago's review, along with Mary Phipher's piece on death in today's NYTimes, remind me of how much I miss the old NYTimes of my memory, when you could only read it on newsprint and thoughtful, interesting, and very well-written articles like these were far more common. I would urge the newspaper's powers-that-be to find more writers like these two.
28
Farago’s review is fine, but writing on Richter is well-trod ground. He is not presenting anything earthshaking here, just a fairly well-done consolidation of much that has said in a newpaperly format.
2
Mr. Richter's art reaffirms the possibilities of modern art. In an era of glitzy artists he offers substance, range, and beauty. Thank you for the review.
41
Art is increasingly becoming far too subjective and success there mostly depend on hype or manufactured propaganda by rich people. They seem to engage in buying it as a way to invest and secure its investment for the long term.
Sometime ago, I read that more than 70% of global wealth are artificially created in this way and stashed away in secretive vaults in places like Switzerland. Often those "collectibles" are auctioned by companies like Sotheby and Christie only to change hands and in the process its value got increased many fold. That takes out the money from our (main) economy without creating almost any added or extra value.
16
You lost me at equating subjectivity with artistic metastasis. That’s a bogus notion as anyone whose mother lovingly ‘forever framed’ their embarrassing kindergarten hand smears would attest.
There are a few overblown major artists but they themselves readily admit that overblown-ness is part of their plan.
Rich people by fancy things. The more sad sack among them actually favor the objective comfort of established masters.
For me a collector who is open to contemporary art - and thereby open to the truth that so called subjectivity is the hallmark of freedom of expression - is far more interesting than the tired catechisms of the anti-art crowd.
8
@Bonku
don't forget Guernsey, Delaware and the Bahamas
2
Mr. Richter has been among my favorite artists for quite some time. I deeply admire his dedication to the craft and ability to so deftly negotiate abstract and realist painting, in a way completely unlike any other artist of the past 50 years. Having never seen a Richter exhibition before, I have been eagerly anticipating the opening of this show for months and hope to visit this weekend.
Richter's series are quintessential to understanding his work and while it is noted that many are absent from this show, I appreciate the focus on these series, rather than the large-scale singular abstract works of the 1980s, which are so popular at public auction. Yet I find a certain irony with these series intended to reconcile issues and questions: Birkenau and the Holocaust, Cage and John Cage, October 18, 1977 and the RAF. In a sense, the works most associated with the unknowing and the uncertain are these one-off abstracts... perhaps these works are simply odes to painting...
Nevertheless, thank you for this beautiful review.
11
@Noah ..dont forget Richard Diebenkorn
4
"I have much to say and I am saying it" would be a more apt supposition.
We are confronted here with the work of a non-linear thinker, who, miraculously, has been able to navigate the way out of Oblivion--the aftermath of Germany's fraught history--and leave us a trail of breadcrumbs to follow.
5
@Allen Appreciate the comment but feel the original "I have nothing to say and I am saying it" is more apt. The infinite reasons why might he have nothing to say are so beautifully revealed
4
Art is increasingly becoming far too subjective and success there mostly depend on hype or manufactured propaganda by rich people. They seem to engage in buying it as a way to invest and secure its investment for the long term. Sometime ago, I read that more than 70% of global wealth are artificially created in this way and stashed away in secretive vaults in places like Switzerland. Often those "collectibles" are auctioned by companies like Sotheby and Christie only to change hands and in the process its value got increased many fold.
6
No mention of the film "Never Look Away"? A shame, since many who cannot see this exhibit in person would probably really enjoy watching the film based on his life.
33
@LC Indeed. The film has been torn up by the literati (it takes many liberties with historical accuracy, incl. Richter's biography) but it is a moving introduction to Richter's life in Germany, east and west.
3
@LC Thanks for that. We were not even aware of Richter until we saw the film this week, and then serendipitously found the announcement of the exhibit. Can't wait to see it.
3
@LC
See also the film "Gerhard Richter Painting," from 2012.
15
I am often underwhelmed by much of contemporary art that is trying to say or teach something. Moralizing, in whatever medium, can be tiresome and worse, often seeming clunky and disjointed. But beautiful objects, whether functional or not, never fail to inspire, and give us pause. In that sense, Art has the power to do something rather than just say it. Mr. Richter's work has often functioned in that way for me and provided a momentary pause and respite from the dogmatism that surrounds us.
25
As opposed to the moralizing/teaching of all other art throughout history?
2
Richter's show at SFMOMA in 2002 prompted me to get my first museum membership, and I've never let it go.
This might be reason enough for me to visit NYC again soon—both to experience a large selection of Richter's work curated in a single exhibition, and to say "farewell" to the Met Breuer at the current location. (Kerry James Marshall was phenomenal. Thank you.)
17
No need to go to NYC. The show is traveling to MoCA in Los Angeles, opening in August.
The show is moving to the MOCA in LA in August.