Lot 449 D

Gerhard Richter overpaints 100 long-playing records of Glenn Gould's Goldberg Variations for the Museumsverein Mönchengladbach of which 50 unique copies are published in the portfolio Hommage à Cladders. The unusual choice of picture carrier bears testimony to the influence of music on the artist's work, which he listens to in his studio on a regular basis. In his notes of 1984, the artist comments on the intense preoccupation with Glen Gould's jazz adaption of Johann Sebastian Bach: ”Glenn Gould, Goldberg Variations. I have been listening to hardly anything else for almost a year. What is starting to bother me, is the perfection. The totally absurd, boring, malicious perfection. No wonder that he died early. I should listen to the radio”. (Gerhard Richter, Notizen 1984, in: Dietmar Elger und Hans Ulrich Obrist (ed.), Gerhard Richter, Text 1961 bis 2007: Schriften, Interviews, Briefe, Cologne 2008, p.134).