GERHARD RICHTER 18. OKTOBER 1977 (1988)
"These paintings shockingly reveal that painting is dead, incapable of transfiguring events, of giving them sense. Painting in the present tense becomes the victim of the historical reality that it had sought to examine. They state pictorially that any attempt at the constituting of meaning via aesthetic means would be not only anachronistic but cynical... If nothing can be altered, because all representation must necessarily end up asserting the inadequacy of the medium, what is the point of these paintings? In Richter's work history paintings must be seen as monuments of mourning: as a lament for loss, which paintings cannot alleviate or even soothe, but must rather assert in its full brutality." Stefan Germer
"I don't think there's an American painter alive who could tackle this subject matter, and get this much feeling into it in this dispassionate way... These paintings aren't like late Rembrandts, exactly, but they're disturbing in a way the Rembrandts are. There's despair in them. And both the Richters and the late Rembrandts are about people recognizing their own solitude through the paintings, which is what we respond to in them." Richard Serra
Reading:
Rainer Usselmann 18. Oktober 1977 LEER
Emily Apter Weaponized Thought LEER
Lynne Cooke Atlas LEER
3 comments:
qué bonitas, me recuerdan mucho a las fotos de Michael Ackerman
Eh, esta entrada no la había visto, como mola esto. Que ganas tengo de verte
While I would agree with Stefan Germer's assertion that Richter's Oktober paintings are testament to a monumental loss I am less sure about the notion of "brutality" - Richter's approach, it seems to me, is one which is closer to a state of catatonic shock in the face of unprecedented and tragic personal and public trauma.
For an entirely different approach, see http://www.thebaadermeinhofcomplex.com/
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