Gerhard Richter

One of the most admired, discussed and influential artists, also on the market, where he has long been undefeated in terms of sales records, Gerhard Richter (Dresden 1932) has been engaged for more than six decades in a profound redefinition of painting as a contemporary medium of expression, in a close confrontation with photography. For him, a painted and a photographed image are equivalent as forms of presentation, rather than representation, of reality. This is why, with sisyphean perseverance, he has sought to blur not only the distinction between painting and photography, but also the distinction between figuration and abstraction, continually shifting from one medium and/or language to another: from painting on canvas, paper, photo, metal, to photography (with "Atlas", his archive of archetypes), sculpture-installation, printmaking (editions and artist's books), drawing and more. This monographic publication analyses Richter's profound postmodernist reflection on the meaning and status of artistic images - especially paintings - in the contemporary iconosphere.