Gerhard Richter
UEBERMALTE FOTOGRAFIEN / PHOTOGRAPHIES PEINTES
OVERPAINTED PHOTOGRAPHS
20 February – 10 May 2009
Tuesday – Sunday 11am – 6pm
Centre de la photographie Genève10, rue des Vieux Grenadiers
1205 Geneva, Switzerland
The exhibition UERBERNALTE FOTOGRAFIEN / PHOTOGRAPHIES PEINTES (OVERPAINTED PHOTOGRAPHS) at the Centre de la photographie Geneva (CPG) presents a side the work of Gerhard Richter (*Dresden, 1932) largely unknown up till now. Only a few collectors and gallerists close to the artist were aware of the practise that Gerhard Richter, one of the most important artists of our times, had developed systematically since 1982. For a long time he had considered this work only as a compliment to his major oeuvre, and it is only since this exhibition was put together that these more than 1500 overpainted photographs will enter into his catalogue raisone. The CPG presents approximately 340 of them in this show.
Today – Gerhard Richter having just celebrated his 77th birthday – this unknown aspect of his work invites one to re-define the totality of his oeuvre which oscillates between his figurative painting which uses photography as its basic model and his abstract painting – which reflects formal geometric abstraction as well as a much looser abstraction. By placing the materials of painting on exposed and developed photographic surfaces, with their involuntary expressiveness, Gerhard Richter reinforces the uniqueness of each of the mediums and opens a field of tension rich in paradoxes, as old as the couple – painting / photography –which has largely defined modern art.
The exhibition has been produced in conjunction with the Museum of Morsbroich, Leverkusen.
For further information:
www.centrephotogeneve.ch / cpg@centrephotogeneve.ch
Telephone: + 41 22 329 28 35 / Fax: + 41 22 320 99 04
