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Half-Naked Thursday: Gerhard Richter

Posted by Kathleen Benton on Nov 12, 2009

For the last few weeks I had been anticipating last Saturday’s opening at Marian Goodman Gallery here in New York: Gerhard Richter: Abstract Paintings 2009 which runs from November 7, 2009 to January 9, 2010. I’ve been looking forward to it because Gerhard Richter is one of my favorite living artists. I had planned to attend the opening, take pictures to include in a post, and possibly meet Mr. Richter himself. But other circumstances prevented these plans from becoming action and I had to put off seeing the show. Oh well, the abstract paintings are just one aspect of Gerhard Richter’s oeuvre. And in that fact lies the key to one of the reasons why I think Gerhard Richter is such a great artist.

I’ve not seen a show of Richter’s work since MoMA mounted the wonderful exhibit Gerhard Richter: 40 years of Painting back in 2002. Then we were treated to the entire variety of his work. If you have not followed Gerhard Richter’s long career (b. 1932) you may not be aware of his tendency to avoid being pigeon-holed by a style, subject matter, or medium. If you only went to see his latest abstracts, then you do not know the landscapes, the seascapes, animals, architecture, the nudes, the portraits, the over-painted photographs, mirrors, and sculptures. Richter avoids giving subject matter a value and meaning by finding no commitment to any one genre. He pushes this further by obstructing or skewing our examination of any particular subject with paint which is blurred, scraped, layered, or smoothed to acquire a paint surface that we cannot escape.

Here then are some of Richter’s paintings of nudes whose dates range over thirty years. These are shown in chronological order. Roter Akt (Red Nude) was completed in 1965 and the latest nude I was able to find, Torso, is from 1997. There is no consistency in Richter’s depicting of the nudes, not in range of palette, texture, canvas size or shape, or detail. Maybe we can begin to guess that each work is Richter’s because of the characteristic blurring of the edges of the subjects. But it is very difficult to be certain that the paintings are all done by the same artist.

The eschewing of style is rare among artists whose ambition is international acclaim. Look at Lucio Pozzi. (Who?, you say. Another time, but soon.) In Richter’s case (and Pozzi’s) style intentionally gets lost through his method of working. During the course of his career Richter has collected sketches, images and photographs. Some photos he has taken, some found, others out of books and magazines. He has put them into a collection he calls the Atlas. From this he takes his subject matter and lets the selection dictate the content, color, and composition of his paintings. With this method he need not make many subjective decisions, and leaves a great deal to chance. In his way, with a lack of meaning in his subject matter and an emphasis on painting itself, Richter is continuing the Modernist mantra of painting as object, a mantra that a few decades ago seemed to be pointing to The Death of Painting, a theory that has been often written about but never totally caught on. By giving us our recognizable subject (but at the same time leaving it undefined and elusive) Richter returns painting to its classic traditions as well (minus the meaning). And Richter gives no answers to anything.

Maybe its not right then to even show some of his nudes as a group. If we want to see the randomness that Richter prefers — the lack of cohesiveness, hierarchy, and style — perhaps viewing his work chronologically is the only way to appreciate that. But I have a feeling even that is over-thinking the premise. Randomness can also include happy coincidence. And I’ve got Half-Naked Thursday as a theme. And, after all, Richter has his abstraction paintings exclusively in a show at present. So I’ll get going into midtown Manhattan and give you the report. But I promise you more of Gerhard Richter’s work, and not just the new abstractions.

Kathleen Benton

(Click on images to enlarge, read title translations, and details. Click again to return to page.)

All paintings by Gerhard Richter (German, b. 1932)

Roter Akt (Red Nude), 1965, Oil on canvas,60 cm X 50 cm

Ema (Akt auf einer Treppe) (Ema (Nude on a Staircase)), 1966, Oil on canvas, 200 cm X 130 cm, Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany

Akt (Nude), 1967, Oil on canvas, 105 cm X 95 cm

Olympia, 1967, Oil on canvas, 200 cm X 130 cm, Böckmann Collection, Neues Museum, Staatliches Museum für Kunst und Design, Nuremberg, Germany

I.G., 1993, Oil on canvas, 72 cm X 102 cm

Kl. Badende (Small Bather), 1994, Oil on canvas, 51 cm X 36 cm

Torso, 1997, Oil on aluminium, 55 cm X 48 cm

To see complete details of these works and more visit gerhard-richter.com

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Elegantly Dressed Wednesday: April Gornik

Posted by Kathleen Benton on Oct 21, 2009

In a world where audacity and infamy are given accolades, one can hardly be surprised when mere brilliance and virtuosity garner relative obscurity. That’s why it’s understandable if the name April Gornik doesn’t ring a bell. Gornick is not a well-known artist. Although she enjoys a very successful career, I don’t think Gornik has the renown she deserves for her exquisite landscape paintings.

It’s not like she hasn’t tried. Gornik began exhibiting her paintings in New York galleries in the early 1980s and has broadened her audience with international shows as well. Her work is included in over forty public collections in the United States and abroad, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Smithsonian Museum of Art. It’s not like she has no role model; Gornik is married since the 1970s to Eric Fischl, an acclaimed artist himself, who made his name in the 80s for painting depictions of dysfunctional suburbia.

No, I think Gornik’s obscurity has to do with the landscape as her subject matter. A landscape doesn’t need much explanation. We don’t need interviews with the artist in order to evaluate our response to a landscape. We don’t need art critics to tell us what we are seeing and why the work is or isn’t an important artistic statement. There’s no question of the artist’s intentions, no challenge to cultural taboos, no shock value, no controversy, no sex, no violence, no merde hitting the canvas.

We can simply appreciate a thoroughly traditional painting genre, handled in this case with great skill by an artist with definitely a modern sensibility. We can enjoy the light and drama of nature and its interpretation into paint which Gornik does so well. For this is work about seeing and painting, not in-your-face headline grabbing.

Moving Sky, 2005, Oil on linen, 24 x 32 inches

I suggest you seek out April Gornik’s paintings for yourself, take a friend with you, and then pass along the good news. The news that great painting is alive and well, relevant, and waiting to be discovered through April Gornik’s work, once we have finished reading the headlines about all the scamps. Know that a reproduction of Gornik’s work, as with most art, is hardly a substitute for the viewing real thing (Light Before Heat is 11 feet long!). While a great deal of contemporary art can be read about and then argued about as a concept, this work needs to be experienced.

Perhaps April Gornik doesn’t want or need to make noise or headlines to feel successful. She may be proud of the fact that her work stands on its own without being confrontational and controversial. It may be enough for her to be masterful and elegant.

Kathleen Benton

Lightning and Water, 1981, Oil on canvas, 50 x 102 inches