Gerhard Richter. Abstrakte Bilder

This issue of the Patrimonia series was published on the occasion of the acquisition of the Silicate series [CR: 885/1-4] by Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in 2005.

Silicate refers to scientific microscope photographs, which show the structure of silicate pellets that were published in the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. The microscopically small structures were enlarged onto canvases measuring 290 x 290 cm. Each work differs in the grade of blurring.

The text contribution by Armin Zweite consists of a modified version of a lecture held at Technical University Dresden in 2005. He analyses both the origin of this group of work as well as their context within Gerhard Richter's œuvre.

This catalogue raisonné records Richter’s works in the years 1993-2004.

In his work, Gerhard Richter calls into question painting's boundaries, and the labels applied to painting and theories connected with them. In his pictures based on photographs - blurred overpaintings, grey paintings, and landscape and abstract compositions - he makes clear that nothing perceived by our senses can ever be found in a picture. The outer world is not portrayable and the inner one resists any comparison. While his painted works based on photographs illustrate painting's superiority, his glass works - glass panes, paintings on glass, mirrors and sculptures - question the interaction of viewer and picture and, like the paintings, offer a window onto the world. This publication takes account of all the important stages of Richter's oeuvre.