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Lot Essay
'There are exhibitions that, like great milestones, reset the standards in contemporary art. Richter's retrospective, launching now at the ARC in Paris, is of this quality' (D. von Drathen quoted in D. Elger, Gerhard Richter: A Life in Painting, Cologne 2002, p. 323).
Executed in 1989, Gerhard Richter's Grat 5 is an exquisitely realised painting from a series of five unique abstract works displayed at the artist's landmark retrospective at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in 1993. Employing alabaster white as a striking surface effect, Richter has beautifully marbled his composition with the confident pull of the squeegee. Forcing the rubber draft excluder across the paint surface, Richter allows striations of colour to emerge from within the concentrated ground of black at the centre of the picture. In sections, the vermillion red and black combine with white to form a warm, improvised colour. Along the perimeter, uncompromised areas free from over-painting emerge, offering up past iterations of bright blue and cadmium yellow.
The work bears the imprint of the artist's methods with the horizontally drawn white surface contrasting the vertically squeegeed paint of previous layers. For Richter, the squeegee, which is employed to such beautiful effect in Grat 5, is the most essential tool in his painter's arsenal. For many years he was reticent about its use, but in these pivotal years embraced the freedom and sheer contingency of its method. The application of the paint with a squeegee can never be controlled and it is this sense of autonomy that Richter so clearly enjoys. As the artist has explained, 'it is a good technique for switching off thinking...consciously I can't calculate the result. But subconsciously I can sense it. This is a nice 'between' state... letting a thing come, rather than creating it' (G. Richter quoted in D. Elger, Gerhard Richter: A Life in Painting, Cologne 2002, p. 251).
In September 1993, Grat 5 was exhibited alongside three of the other Grat paintings from the series, in the most comprehensive retrospective of the artists work to date. Held at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, the exhibition later travelled to Bonn, Stockholm and Madrid. At Richter's personal request, Kasper König was approached to act as curator and Benjamin Buchloch edited a three-volume catalogue raisonné to accompany the show. The exhibition included a collection of paintings created over the course his thirty-year career, including four of the five Grat paintings. The response was rapturous with critic Doris von Drathen commenting enthusiastically: 'there are exhibitions that, like great milestones, reset the standards in contemporary art. Richter's retrospective, launching now at the ARC in Paris, is of this quality' (D. von Drathen quoted in D. Elger, Gerhard Richter: A Life in Painting, Cologne 2002, p. 323).
Executed in 1989, Gerhard Richter's Grat 5 is an exquisitely realised painting from a series of five unique abstract works displayed at the artist's landmark retrospective at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in 1993. Employing alabaster white as a striking surface effect, Richter has beautifully marbled his composition with the confident pull of the squeegee. Forcing the rubber draft excluder across the paint surface, Richter allows striations of colour to emerge from within the concentrated ground of black at the centre of the picture. In sections, the vermillion red and black combine with white to form a warm, improvised colour. Along the perimeter, uncompromised areas free from over-painting emerge, offering up past iterations of bright blue and cadmium yellow.
The work bears the imprint of the artist's methods with the horizontally drawn white surface contrasting the vertically squeegeed paint of previous layers. For Richter, the squeegee, which is employed to such beautiful effect in Grat 5, is the most essential tool in his painter's arsenal. For many years he was reticent about its use, but in these pivotal years embraced the freedom and sheer contingency of its method. The application of the paint with a squeegee can never be controlled and it is this sense of autonomy that Richter so clearly enjoys. As the artist has explained, 'it is a good technique for switching off thinking...consciously I can't calculate the result. But subconsciously I can sense it. This is a nice 'between' state... letting a thing come, rather than creating it' (G. Richter quoted in D. Elger, Gerhard Richter: A Life in Painting, Cologne 2002, p. 251).
In September 1993, Grat 5 was exhibited alongside three of the other Grat paintings from the series, in the most comprehensive retrospective of the artists work to date. Held at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, the exhibition later travelled to Bonn, Stockholm and Madrid. At Richter's personal request, Kasper König was approached to act as curator and Benjamin Buchloch edited a three-volume catalogue raisonné to accompany the show. The exhibition included a collection of paintings created over the course his thirty-year career, including four of the five Grat paintings. The response was rapturous with critic Doris von Drathen commenting enthusiastically: 'there are exhibitions that, like great milestones, reset the standards in contemporary art. Richter's retrospective, launching now at the ARC in Paris, is of this quality' (D. von Drathen quoted in D. Elger, Gerhard Richter: A Life in Painting, Cologne 2002, p. 323).