Gerhard Richter
dal 2/2/2012 al 21/4/2012
Segnalato da
2/2/2012
Gerhard Richter
Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden
In celebration of his 80th birthday, the Gerhard Richter Archive of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden presents the Atlas. It consists of approximately 800 framed panels with more than 15.000 photographs, newspaper clippings, sketches and designs, which Richter had accumulated for work in his studio from the early 1960s onwards.
Gerhard Richter’s ATLAS merits a special place within his oeuvre as a whole. It not only forms the basis of his entire work as a painter but is also an autonomous artwork in its own right. Born in Dresden on 9th February 1932, Richter has been constantly revising and augmenting this “work in progress” for more than four decades.
By 1964, Richter had collected a vast amount of pictorial source material for his painting, first keeping it in drawers and portfolios. Five years later he began to sift through this material with a critical eye, grouping the individual photographs, reproductions and sketches into different themes and pasting them onto separate panels. Richter then soon recognized the intrinsic artistic quality of these collections of source material and, in 1972, framed the panels and exhibited them at the Museum Hedendaagse Kunst in Utrecht under the title ATLAS. Meanwhile this repository of source material has grown from its original 343 panels to its present 783, with more than 8,000 individual motifs.
ATLAS may be seen as an accompaniment, commentary and extension of the entire oeuvre of Gerhard Richter, for it also develops its own perspectives and poses its own questions. ATLAS is Richter’s reflection not only on his own work but also on the everyday world of images that he himself has documented photographically in their thousands. “I see countless landscapes, photograph barely one in 100,000, and paint barely 1 in 100 of those that I photograph,” Richter wrote in 1986. This photographed, yet and seemingly inexhaustible flood of images has afforded Richter a concentrated, ready accessibility of motifs for his future works. Indeed, for some of his paintings, he has been able to draw upon old motifs in his ATLAS, some of them dating back more than a decade.
The conceptual character of the ATLAS offers unique insights into the mindset of the artist, into the development of some ideas for works as well as into the creational process of several of his paintings.
The accompanying artist’s book “ATLAS” is not just intended as a means of documenting the exhibition. Gerhard Richter sees it as an alternative presentation to the exhibited panels, one that permits an additional, different, non-linear approach to the material.
The exhibition was curated in close cooperation with the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau München that preserves the ATLAS in its collection. We have to thank the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe for supporting the exhibition.
Image: Atlas, Plate 422 © Gerhard Richter 2012
Stephan Adam - Head of Press & Communication Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden Tel. +49-351-49142643 Fax +49-351-49142366 E-Mail: presse@skd.museum
Press Conference on Friday, 3 February 2012, at 11:30 a.m.
Participants:
Gerhard Richter
Prof. Dr. Dirk Syndram, acting Director General of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden
Dr. Dietmar Elger, Director of the Gerhard Richter Archive
Prof. Dr. Helmut Friedel, Director of the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau München
Dr. Heike Kramer, Director, Head of the Department of Civic Engagement and Events Management, Deutscher Sparkassen- und Giroverband
Kunsthalle im Lipsiusbau
Brühlsche Terrasse Taschenberg 2 D-01067 Dresden
Opening hours:
daily 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
closed on mondays
Admission fees:
Admission € 6
reduced fee € 3,50
Groups (10 and more) € 5 p. P.
Children under 17 years free admission