The Color Grey
On the occasion of Gerhard Richter's exhibition
Acht Grau (Eight Grey), which can be seen in the exhibition
hall of the Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin until January 5, Marion Ackermann
and Wolf Tegethoff explain the meaning of the color grey in a cultural
and art historical context.

 Gerhard Richter: ACHT GRAU exhibition view, 2002 Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin
His greatest pleasure was […]
in pursuing some silly notion endlessly. Thus, he always wore grey, and
because the various parts of his suit were comprised of different fabrics
and, hence, gradations, he could muse for days about how he could procure
yet another grey onto his body, and he was happy when he succeeded in doing
so and thereby putting us to shame, we who had doubted him or declared
the matter to be impossible. Upon which he would reprimand us on our lack
of inventive spirit and belief in his talents. Unofficial translation
from: Goethe, Dichtung u. Wahrheit (HA Vol. 9, p. 297)
In popular
vernacular use, grey usually carries negative connotations: it comes across
as inconspicuous, ordinary, especially in its widely used reference to
a certain species among the female sex. It conceals the true character
of things in that it robs them of their power of illumination, cloaking
them in a vague “veil of grey.” Grey signalizes a distance from life (“all
theory is… grey”), while “ashen” indicates decay and impending death. It
preponderates in the dull tones of twilight; in “grey zones” and “grey
markets,” it seems unclear and ambiguous – not to speak of the éminence
grise or power behind the throne, whose secret numbers and machinations
are difficult to penetrate for the uninitiated. Despite this, the color
grey possesses a keen power of suggestion without which the vast success
of film and photography would have been inconceivable.
Spanning
the space between black and white, its endless shades are capable of evoking
the entire chromatic spectrum, without its obvious colorlessness appearing
too unrealistic. The phenomenon has been known for ages, and has inspired
many an artistic inquiry. Grisaille, that is, wall and panel paintings
comprised exclusively of tones of brown and grey, were already known to
antiquity and have assumed a fixed position in post-Enlightenment painting
ever since Jan van Eyck’s Adam
and Eve on the wings of the Ghent
Altarpiece. Whether or not it was primarily a case of imitating
plastic works of art is no longer the question here. The fascination for
using extremely limited means to conjure up an illusion that was as close
to reality as possible was certainly no less an impulse.
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 Gerhard Richter, Aus der Serie Fingermalereien, 1971, Oil on Paper © Gerhard Richter, Köln
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Grey seldom
consists in a simple mixture of black and white, but normally results from
equal amounts of blue, red, yellow, and green whose respective blend determines
the specific tone of grey, modifying it in one direction or another. This
is what makes it a popular background, as it enhances and intensifies the
brilliance of every other color. Because grey contains the full color spectrum,
it always conveys an overall impression of harmony in which a colorful
object can both dominate in space and become liberated from its isolation.
A white wall never seems neutral, but enters into a deliberate contrast
with the paintings hanging in front of it. On the other hand, grey unifies,
creating gentle transitions. Artists have always been fascinated by this
property and have been continually impelled to investigate it. Following
the color orgies of the Fauves at the beginning of the 20th century, the
paintings of early Cubism were monochrome, characterized by a subtle undertone
of grey and brown pigments. In Guernica
(1937), Picasso did without color entirely. Here, grey became the expressive
means to convey the horror of the nocturnal scene, thus underscoring the
narrow etymological connection between the German terms “grau” (grey) and
“Grauen” (horror).

 Joseph Beuys, Iphigenie/Titus Andronicus, 1985 Glasobjekt in Eisenrahmen Sammlung Deutsche Bank © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2003
A subdued anthracite grey prevailed among the
products of the Ulm
Academy of Design in the fifties and early sixties and has left a lasting
impression on the design of the post-war era. The only things accented
with color were the functional elements, such as buttons, cranks, and switches
– which clearly emphasized the objects’ utilitarian character. |
An inconspicuous
grey also governed daily office life during the reconstruction period:
a grey vest, grey pants, and a grey jacket, a grey outfit for the head
secretary and a grey limousine with a star on the hood for the gentlemen
of the board hid the growing wealth behind the demonstrative sign of discretion.
Up until the triumph of Pop Art, color seemed increasingly banned from
the palette, even in the visual arts.
At the end of the fifties,
following a working crisis which he later termed “field work,” Joseph
Beuys relinquished the brilliant color and transparency of his early
watercolors. A thick paste of grey and brown now covered the underlying
layers of brighter color, which nonetheless remained latently visible.
In its haptic materiality, the opaque grey layer weighs heavily upon the
delicate colorful ground, which nonetheless shines through in a nearly
imperceptible way. Similar to black, grey swallows light, under whose influence
alone color can unfold. In the viewer’s imagination, grey also creates,
as Beuys stressed, a complementary image that implies the idea of the entire
chromatic spectrum. In a process of inner imagination, the external world
of experience becomes compensated: “Grey,” according to Beuys, “can be
read as a neutralization or as an image of neutralization in the area of
color. I use grey to provoke something in people, something like an opposing
image, or one could nearly say: to produce the rainbow in people.” Beuys’
original motif and key material – grey felt – is suspended above the chasm
of the grey everyday life of the late years of the German economic miracle.
Grey always appears uniform in the masses, yet when we take a closer, more
discerning look, it acquires a clearly individual character; in the final
analysis, as Beuys said, an elephant “always wears the same suit.”

 Blinky Palermo, Ohne Titel, 1961 Monotypie auf Papier montiert auf Karton c-print © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2003
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 Blinky Palermo, Ohne Titel, 1970 c-print © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2003
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 Andy Warhol, Joseh Beuys in Memoriam, 1986, c-print Sammlung Deutsche Bank © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2003
For
Gerhard
Richter, this notion of the deliberate compensation of a lack of color
in the viewer’s imagination plays an equally important role. In his Two
Sculptures for a Room by Blinky
Palermo from 1971, color is effectively extinguished. Plaster masks
of both artists were initially covered in a thick layer of paint that clearly
retained the traces of the brushstroke. Then, two bronze casts were made
from the painted masks, which subsequently received a thin grey finish.
This final coat eliminates both the materiality of the bronze and the original
color of the plaster model, while allowing it to resonate in the memory
through the relief character of the earlier painted layer. The sculptures’
dull, “dead” grey hue inspires insecurity; in spite of their weight, it
negates the classic warm, metallic surface attraction. Similarly, Pia
Stadtbäumer’s wax models on grey bases in the Installation Androgyn/Gynander
from the year 1993 are just as difficult to interpret. The invisible and
the concealed nonetheless continue to exist below the surface, thus contributing
immeasurably to the work’s overall effect. After Andy Warhol decorated
the façade of a Philip
Johnson building with the criminal photographs of the Most
Wanted Men in 1964 (read an article of Irit Krygier about Andy Warhol's
work here),
and following massive public protest, he had it painted over in a layer
of silver-grey aluminum paint, entirely aware, no doubt, that the faces
concealed underneath would continue to remain vivid in the imaginations
of passers-by, and that its efficacy and intensity could only become thereby
enhanced.

 Gerhard Richter: ACHT GRAU exhibition view, 2002 Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin
Through a modulation in brushstroke, Richter’s grey diversifies
the character of the painted surface in a number of ways. Thus, he experimentally
explores the phenomenal opposite of local and apparent color, a fact which
only becomes apparent in the viewer’s reaction. Certainly, “all cats are
grey at night,” as the saying goes, yet the knowledge of the actual coloration
of things has been impressed upon our minds irrevocably for once and for
all. Seen by light, grey is for this reason never merely simply grey, but
can be read as a color hidden beneath layers and veils.
Marion
Ackermann is a curator at the Städtische
Galerie im Lehnbachhaus in Munich Wolf Tegethoff is the director
of the Zentralinstitut
für Kunstgeschichte
Translation: Andrea Scrima
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