"Eight Grey" in Dusseldorf:
Gerhard
Richter’s masterpiece for the Deutsche Guggenheim can now be seen in a
large retrospective at the K20
Gerhard Richter: ACHT GRAU,
Exhibition view at Deutsche Guggenheim, 2002
Photo: Mathias Schorman, © Deutsche Guggenheim
Through May 16, the Art Collection of North Rhine-Westphalia is showing a
comprehensive exhibition at the K20
consisting of approximately 110 paintings and sculptures by
Gerhard Richter; in close cooperation with the artist, a careful selection
of paintings from photographs and abstract works has been made spanning
every important phase. The show also includes the glass pieces, paintings
behind glass, and mirror works.
Along with paintings dating from
the 60s onwards, recent works can be seen that have not yet been shown in
public: landscapes and figurative motifs as well as abstract works and
grey images. The absolute highlight is the large exhibition hall on the
ground floor. Here, along with the recently made mural Strontium,
which measures more than 9 x 9 meters, Richter is presenting the work
group Eight Grey, which was exhibited in 2002 in the
Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin and has been at home in the
Guggenheim Bilbao ever since.
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Eight Grey’s eight monumental grey enamel
glass plates carry on a theme of Richter’s oeuvre that already began back
in the mid-sixties with the monochromes and works on glass. The
installation 4 Sheets of Glass from 1967, in which four window-like
elements modify spacial perspectives through their vertical rotation, can
be considered a precursor in this respect.
Gerhard Richter: ACHT GRAU,
Exhibition view at Deutsche Guggenheim, 2002
Photo: Mathias Schorman, © Deutsche Guggenheim
Similarly, the panels of Eight Grey, originally commissioned by the
Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin, can also be tilted at various angles. The
installation’s eight glass plates are mounted 50 cm. from the wall with
the help of steel supports and appear as ambiguous objects hovering on the
boundaries between painting, sculpture, and architecture.
The last
times Gerhard Richter’s work could be seen in the Rhineland was in 1986 at
the Dusseldorf Kunsthalle
and in 1993/94 in a retrospective at the
Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn. In 2002/2003, a seminal exhibition in the
United States began at New York’s
Museum of Modern Art, offering a representative cross-section
throughout the artist’s oeuvre. Since that time, the project at the Art
Collection of North Rhine-Westphalia is the first comprehensive show of
the much-acclaimed artist in Europe.
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