Lot 796 D

Gerhard Richter layers the colours on top of each other in his 'abstract pictrures' with the squeegee, so that an oscillating colour spectrum seems to come shine out from within. The layers are permeable in places, creating interesting compositions of colour and structure. With the present work for example, the picture plane shines through the top layer of paint in a few places, evoking a feeling of spatial depth. The unpredictability of the end result presents the artist with a challenge, as he himself has said: 'When I paint an abstract picture (although the problem with others isn't dissimilar), I don't know beforehand how it should look, nor whilst painting do I know where I am going, and what should be done. Because of this, painting is kind of a blind, desperate endeavour, as if destitute and abandoned in a incomprehensible environment - such as one who owns a particular range of tools, materials and abilities and desperately wishes to build something meaningful and useful, but, however, is not allowed to build either a house or a stool, or some other thing that can be named, and therefore simply starts hitting, in the vague hope that the correct, skilled action will finally enable something correct and meaningful to materialize'. (Gerhard Richter, Notizen 1986, in: Hans-Ulrich Obrist (ed.), Gerhard Richter, Text, Schriften und Interviews, Frankfurt am Main and Leipzig 1993, p.115)