Gerhard Richter: Forty Years of Painting [ハードカバー]

The text:
First, there is the 75 page introduction Storr has written, placing the work in historical perspective. Why a retrospective, why now? Following this is the history of Richter's development from student to backwater (non-American) Pop artist with extensive references to other influential artists and reproductions of their work. Storr goes often beyond Richter's statements to supply his (Storr's) own close reading of the paintings. He finds Richter hides behind humor or simple misreadings of the work in order to conceal emotional attachment to themes.

Following is a valuable 22 page interview conducted in 2001. Robert Storr is an absolutely worthy interrogator of the artist. Storr had a previous extensive interview with Richter in '96. The text in Forty Years builds significantly on the ground covered previously. The two men are so in tune to each other, I miss the almost taunting flavor of the interview found in "The Daily Practice of Painting" between Richter and Benjamin Buchloh. Every page of the interview contains surprises or important points regarding Twentieth century art. Often, Storr's well-formed questions run a good paragraph long with Richter responding quite briefly and not too predictably. One could read the interview in random pieces, as themes develop over a few rounds of questions then the subject is often changed.
There is also a chronology outlining significant events both in Richter's career & artistic production as well as outside events such as student demonstrations, the fall of the Berlin Wall, various marriages.

The reproductions: I knew I was holding quality when I saw the two different studio shots that grace the front & back inner covers. The scholarly introduction has a few pictures of work not in the MOMA exhibit. The plates are arranged basically in the order one would encounter them at MOMA. The 8 Students nurses are grouped (all 8 span just 2 pages) as are the 48 Portraits (spanning 11 pages). What the reproductions can't show is that "Kitchen Chair" "65 & "Barn" '84 are the representational works with as much surface action as the abstracts. And the Baader-Meinhof series has a 3-page foldout out to enjoy the Confrontation I, II & III. Several of the large abstractions are placed on 2-page spreads; this is necessary to see their surface.

What becomes apparent from this book is that Richter is dedicated to the humanistic (and retinal) tradition of the endeavor of painting; most significantly Richter is not at all threatened by new developments in contemporary art - rather he attempts to understand the latest developments and incorporate them into genuine expressions from his "daily practice".

A lot of words been written lately about the unexpected revival of painting fueled by the current Gerhardt Richter painting retrospective captured in this book. It seems, according to some influential art scribes writing in the trail of this traveling exhibition, that the much heralded demise of painting, much like Mark Twains death, has been greatly exaggerated. Showcasing about 120 works over a 40-year period, this book is one of the most comprehensive retrospectives ever mounted about a contemporary painter in recent memory, and that by itself is a strong enough reason to buy it. However, it is what has been proven by Richters career and accomplishments, and unexpected stature in the art world (Sothebys recently dubbed him the most influential living artist in the world) and now driven home here, that makes this a-once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to learn some lessons about the contemporary art world. You see, Richter doesnt fit the formula for success that many art curators and influential critics and other art powers-that-be have carefully crafted in the rarified atmospheres of the upper crusts of the art world. In fact, Richter breaks every rule that often starts being pressed upon 18-year old art students and then is hammered home in reviews and lectures by many contemporary art critics and curators. Rules like you better have your own recognizable style! or only new is good and the oddest rule of all: painting is dead! But Richter is not only a painter in an era forced to focus on video artists, performance stars and PhotoShop wonders, but also Richter wanders from style to style with an ease and speed that makes this book a lesson on half a dozen art movements of the last century beautifully continued onto the current one. Thumb through the pages here and youll soon discover that Richter is as much as ease with photorealism  some ultra sharp and some foggy in detail -- as he is with pure abstraction and with romantic paintings of pretty clouds and scenic waterfalls. This is an artist who is not just happy with thumbing his nose at the well-enforced rule that a good artist has to have a clearly identifiable style and do something new, but who also seems intent on destroying the other forced formulas of the modern art world: he copies other artists works, works directly from photographs, blah, blah, blah  all sins that would make all my art professors and most art critics sigh in disgust. But above all, Richter paints, and he paints in a time when painting has been dismissed as ailing and ancient. New is good, technology is good painting is dead. Why does Richter paint? Doesnt he get it? NOPE!! Its because it is all about painting! And managing to make fools of critics who forget that their job is to follow the artist  not to lead the arts. What those who consider painting an ailing form will never understand (mostly because they are not painters), is that Richter cant and wont stop painting, because through his veins runs the same intoxicating venom that fueled their ancestral kin in the caves of Altamira and which will continue to drive painters long after todays critics and curators are forgotten dust. This book shouts: Art does not have to be new to be good, and technology is not the only venue to deliver great new contemporary art - it also continues to prove that painting will never die.

Behold, German painting! In a country whose artists tend to lay the paint on blut and thick, Richter is a notable contrast. He represents, along with Sigmar Polke, the best of a school of European painters who assimilated the American Pop Art scene. Don't expect the blazing cartoon colors of Lichtenstein though, Richter is a painter's painter, who has more depth and soul than Warhol ever could (surely by his own admission). But Richter's subject matter also comes from the mundane: a faded family snapshot, a clipping from a newspaper. Bits of emphemera blown up a hundred times and immortalized in oil paint. Clement Greenberg might abhore Richter's work more than the American Pop Artists: here is grand kitcsh by the hand of a master painter.
*note that I speak mostly of Richter's representative work, of which the book mostly focuses on. Also, the large Richter retrospective, having left N.Y., is still touring America for those interested