Oil on photography 1989.
Oil on photograph 1989.
Gerhard Richter studied as a artist and began his career during his mid teens whilst studying at the Dresden Art Academy in communist East Germany. Richter formed a group called the capitalist realists along with Sigmar Polke and Konrad Fischer-Lueg and Georg Baselitz the interesting thing about this group is that they derived their subject matter from print media, as supposed to creating the subject matter and meaning from the actual painting itself, and the focus should be on the image as supposed to on the reference.
These three images i have chosen demonstrate Richter's use of photography within his paintings, he uses either found images or images he has taken himself he then projects the image onto a canvas and traces the photograph and colours it using the exact palette from the image. as you can see with these three images above the photographs underneath has a slight blur to them, this is due to the soft brush strokes Richter uses to paint these photographs with. Richter then paints over the image and as you can see within last image i have displayed here he contrasts the light soft focus of the photograph underneath with the hard aggressive blocks of colour he created perhaps using a squeegee. sometimes this effect can alter how we see the image, for example all three of these images above are being hidden in some way, there are parts of the image that we cannot see due to their being paint in the way, this can dramatically alter the meaning of the image, for example the facial expressions of the two people in the first image could explain quite a lot to us about that particular image or give that image meaning behind it but their faces have been hidden behind paint so we therefore see the image differently to how it was originally intended.
"I want to leave everything as it is. I therefore neither plan nor invent; I add nothing and omit nothing. At the same time, I know that I inevitably shall plan, invent, alter, make and manipulate. But I don't know that." Gerhard Richter 1964.
This quote contradicts what i just said in that Richter is saying that by him painting onto these photographs he is not adding anything to the images or taking anything away, i.e. distracting us from the original meaning of the photograph. He also does not feel that by painting over the photographs he is adding anything spectacular to these images, he feels that there is nothing spectacular to add, the images themselves are strong enough but Richter is just giving us a alternative way of looking at these images. Richter publishes these images in exhibitions and galleries all around the world, by publishing them this way allows Richter to give the images as much or as little explanation behind them as he wishes. Whereas if Richter was using these images for advertising for example he would have to make the meaning of the images a lot clearer to the audiences.
I think these images are very strong, Richter uses found images and adds something from himself to them, as supposed to artists such as Richard Prince who uses images that someone else has taken and just crops them differently, i do like Prince's work but feel that he does not add anything new from himself as an artist to the images. Richter leaves his mark, so to speak, on the images which therefore adds to them in some way and makes them his own therefore making them into pieces of new art as supposed to just found photographs. He is happy to admit that the images are not his own and he does not try to take credit for them but rather better them by adding details through oil paint. I find these images very beautiful and unique.
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