by Jon Lackman | 16 November 2009 | Contemporary
ARTINFO interviews Gerhard Richter:
In his essay, [Benjamin] Buchloh discusses the various associations white paintings can have — with the idea of reductiveness, the end of painting. And of course there are Rauschenberg’s white paintings, and Ryman’s. Were any of these things on your mind while you worked on yours?
I don’t know the Rauschenberg paintings, but I know Ryman very well, and many others. What I didn’t agree [with Buchloh about] is that white painting is so abstract. I told him even Ryman, who intends to show nothing, gives us associations. I think it’s not possible to avoid giving a cue of something. I would like to look at these paintings the same way I look at photographs. They show something. They are not abstract.
How do you see the relationship between abstraction and figuration in your work? Some of the pieces in this exhibition seem to toe the line between the two approaches. The September print, for instance.
It’s hard to explain it. But I don’t see such a big difference. Both show something.
In the white paintings one might see atmospheric effects, or clouds.
For me it’s more an area I don’t know, and an object I don’t know.
