ART CITIES: Rome-Gerhard Richter

Throughout his career, Gerhard Richter has negotiated the frontier between photography and painting, captivated by the way in which these two seemingly opposing practices speak to and challenge one another. From exuberant canvases rendered with a squeegee and acerbic color charts to paintings of photographic detail and close-ups of a single brushstroke, Richter moves effortlessly between the two mediums, reveling in the complexity of their relationship, while never asserting one above the other.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Gagosian Archive

Gerhard Richter, present in Rome “Moving Picture (946-3) Kyoto Version” (2019–24), an immersive installation in film and sound. The installation is the immersive, experiential apotheosis of Richter’s “Strip: project, which he began working on in 2010 following his discovery of digital tools for mining existing paintings for new artistic strategies. The series was initiated when the artist digitally fractured the photographic image of a canvas into progressively smaller divisions which he then doubled, or mirrored, across expansive surfaces. This process opened up a world of new possibilities that resulted in the “Strip” paintings (2011–16), as well as books, prints, tapestries, and “STRIP-TOWER” (2023), a monumental sculpture now on view at Serpentine, London.  “Moving Picture (946-3)” Kyoto Version consists of a film, made in collaboration with Corinna Belz, projected at a monumental 22-meters wide and accompanied by a score for trumpet composed by Rebecca Saunders and recorded by Marco Blaauw. Six speakers surround the viewer, giving a physical force and presence to the music. Previously, Richter’s experimentations in combining image and sound into immersive experiences have resulted in temporary works at the Manchester International Festival (in 2015, with Arvo Pärt) and The Shed, New York (in 2019, with Pärt and Steve Reich). Throughout his storied career, Richter has consistently revitalized painting through an analytical exploration of the potentials of photography, chance occurrence, and systematic processes, all of which find their ultimate expression in “Moving Picture”. In the 1960s he harnessed found magazine and newspaper photographs as source imagery for his paintings, while in the 1970s he took pictures of his own paintings and vastly enlarged minute details of their brushstrokes. Richter has long found generative possibilities in the chance arrangements of color grids, first with his “Color Chart” paintings of the 1960s and later with “4900 Colors” (2007) and the “Cologne Cathedral Window’ (2007). Like the last of these projects, “Moving Picture” is a work in light, illuminating the infinite beauty of chance.

Photo: Gerhard Richter, Moving Picture (946-3) Kyoto Version, 2019-24 (still), Digital projection (color, sound, 36 min.), © Gerhard Richter 2024 (28102024), Courtesy the artist and Gagosian

Info: Gagosian, Via Francesco Crispi 16, Rome, Italy, Duration: 6/12/2024-1/2/2025, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:30, https://gagosian.com/