Our report from ArtBasel 2014 starts from a fabulous Gerhard Richter at Fondation Beyeler
-
- Gerhard Richter, Verkündigung nach Tizian, 1973 Oil on canva, 125 cm x 200 cm. Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., Joseph H. Hirshhorn Purchase Fund, 1994© 2014 Gerhard Richter.
-
- Gerhard Richter, Verkündigung nach Tizian, 1973. Oil on canvas, 150 cm x 250 cm. Private collection. © 2014 Gerhard Richter.
-
- Gerhard Richter, Verkündigung nach Tizian, detail from the exhibition’s catalogue.
-
- Gerhard Richter, Verkündigung nach Tizian, detail from the exhibition’s catalogue.
-
- Gerhard Richter, Verkündigung nach Tizian, detail from the exhibition’s catalogue.
-
- Gerhard Richter Davos, 1981 Oil on canvas, 70 cm x 100 cm. Stefan T. Edlis Collection © 2014 Gerhard Richter.
-
- Gerhard Richter Schädel, 1983. Oil on canvas, 55 cm x 50 cm Collezione privata destinata in prestito al Gerhard Richter Archiv, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden © 2014 Gerhard Richter.
-
- Gerhard Richter Betty, 1988, Oil on canvas, 102 cm x 72 cm. Saint Louis Art Museum.
-
- Gerhard Richter, Lesende, 1994, Oil on canvas, 72 cm x 102 cm. San Francisco Museum of Modern © 2014 Gerhard Richter.
-
- Gerhard Richter S. mit Kind, 1995. Oil on canvas, 61 cm x 51 cm Hamburger Kunsthalle, Dauerleihgabe der Stiftung für die Hamburger Kunstsammlungen © 2014 Gerhard Richter.
-
- Gerhard Richter, Ella, 2007 Oil on canvas, 40 cm x 31 cm. Private collection. © 2014 Gerhard Richter.
-
- Gerhard Richter, Pictures/Series, installation view.
If the big power in the art system is the capability of placing the artwork always in its ideal environment, the current retrospective show dedicated to Gerhard Richter’s “pictures and series” at the Fondation Beyeler in Basel is the last evidence that the artist from Dresden is, nowadays, not only a very expensive dream for top collectors, but also someone who can make a dream come true.
Rarely the public will have the extraordinary occasion of seeing these “series” gathered together setting parallels between the two branches of Richter’s art practice, that is figurative and abstraction. And rarely the public will have the occasion of having them in such a perfect setting, side by side with masterpieces by artists who have deeply influenced Richter such as Claude Monet, Paul Klee and, of course, Pablo Picasso. Three key adjectives will be enough to understand in which way: horizontal, grey, colourful.
Of course the series dedicated to the Annunciation Tiziano painted for the Scuola Grande di San Rocco in Venice has particularly captured our attention. The five pieces are currently dispersed among various collections. Richter saw the painting live in 1973, on occasion of his exhibition at the German pavilion for the Venice Biennial. Then he stated: “I just wanted it for myself, for my apartment, so I decided to copy it, as far as I could. But I couldn’t even manage a semi-presentable copy. So then I painted five variations on the Annunciation that didn’t have much to do with Titian’s Annunciation but that I was quite happy with”. Is this the real meaning of the artis’ process of abstraction? Could a painted abstraction of something be just a way to posses it so to be “quite happy with”? So this is how things apparently go.
September 22, 2014
