Lot 5 N

''Gerhard Richter's painting is a discrete painting. It is a painting which knows to distinguish between too much and too little in relation to expression, reflexivity and self-reference of painterly means. And it is a painting which maintains the distinction, the boundary between picture and the surrounding. There also, where the colours glow or the brushstrokes bring the movement of the painting hand to life, there is no loud addressing, we won't be drawn into the turbulence of artistic or psychological arousal. There are neither expressive gestures which seek and find their line of expression in wild lineament, nor an excessive handling of the material which wishes to make the interior as the physical form of the externalisation visible. Nevertheless no matter which format, Richter's pictures have a strong physical presence as painting which confidently expresses itself: In an emphatic sense his pictures are a painted surface, which in a minimalist manner is what it is. And at the same time, even when it appears as a material, paint has a depth which gives a metaphorical 'glance inside' when generated on a surface. Both ways of handling the painting claim to be true, in historically different forms, a claim Richter will not abandon, as shown by the sceptical changing movements on the pictures and in the texts.'' (Beate Söntgen, Arbeit am Bild, Gerhard Richters Diskretion, in: Gerhard Richter, Abstrakte Bilder, exhib.cat, Museum Ludwig Cologne, Ostfildern 2008, p.35)