|
|
|
|
 |
 |
| Atlas, Sheet #1 - 1962 |
|
|
In my picture atlas...I can only get a handle on the flood of pictures by creating order since there are no individual pictures at all anymore.
|
|
 |
|
 |
| Party, Mixed Media 1962 |
|
 |
 |
| Reader, 1994- Oil on Linen |
|
|
|
The Photograph had to mean more to me than art history for it was the reflection of my reality, our reality. I was surprised by the photograph, which we all use in such masses on a daily basis, suddenly I could see it in another view lacking all the conventional criteria that I had previously associated with art....
The Daily Practice Of Painting Writings 1962 - 1993 Gerhard Richter Edited by Hans-Ulrich Obrist Translated by David Britt
My approach to form is very simple. Whatever is real is so unlimited and unshaped that we have to summarize it. The more dramatic events are, the more important the form. That is why people marry in a church and why we need a priest for a funeral. Form is all we have to help us cope with fundamentally chaotic facts and assaults....
Formulating something is a great start. I trust form, trust my feeling or capacity to find the right form for something. Even if that is only by being well organized. That too is form. As for chance, consider John Cage. His musical compositions were never a total appropriation of a chance acoustic event. He devised an ingenious system to build structures from dumb abundance. And he devoted even more skill to giving form to this succession of sounds. That is the absolute opposite of chance, nature and rubbish....
Interview with Thorn Prikker- ART; A Picture Is Worth 216 Newspaper Articles, The New York Times - Published: July 4, 2004
|
|
|
|
 |
| Abstract , Oil on Canvas- 1984 |
|
|
Abstract Painting deploys the utmost visual immediacy - all resources of art in fact - in order to depict nothing. I want to picture to myself what is going on now. Painting can help in this, and different methods - subjects - themes are just the different attempts I make in this direction.
The Daily Practice Of Painting Writings 1962 - 1993 Gerhard Richter Edited by Hans-Ulrich Obrist Translated by David Britt
|
|
|
|
 |
| Youth Portrait, Oil on Canvas - 1988 |
|
|
One has to believe in what one is doing, one has to commit oneself inwardly, in order to do painting. Once obsessed, one ultimately carries it to the point of believing that one might change human beings through painting. But if one lacks this passionate commitment, there is nothing left to do. Then it is best to leave it alone. For basically painting is idiocy...
Now that we do not have priests and philosophers anymore, artists are the most important people in the world... Art is wretched, cynical, stupid, helpless, confusing...
The Daily Practice Of Painting Writings 1962 - 1993 Gerhard Richter Edited by Hans-Ulrich Obrist Translated by David Britt
|
|
|
|
 |
| War Cut, Published 2004 |
|
|
My method was to attach a number of texts to a number of images without having to think about whether something would be better positioned to the left or the right, above or below. Or whether a specific image fit together with a particular text or not. Most did fit together, and only a few inappropriate or banal conjunctions had to be changed. The images are always arranged in accordance with -- what shall I call it: aesthetic criteria? I placed these images so that a connection develops in terms of colors, structures and other characteristics. It all starts somewhat casually. It was like putting together a story or a film, which begins somehow or other, has tranquil and wild, nasty and fantastic passages, and then once again fades away, ending in white. A dream.
Interview with Thorn Prikker- ART; A Picture Is Worth 216 Newspaper Articles, The New York Times - Published: July 4, 2004
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
