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Gerhard Richter: text : writings, interviews and letters, 1961-2007

Book by Gerhard Richter · 15 quotes · Painting, Art, Ifs

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AllPaintingArtIfsWayColourIdeasMeanObjectsPhotographRealityBelieveChanceCorrespondingEffortFirstsHumansI BelieveI CanImitationImportant

Gerhard Richter: text : writings, interviews and letters, 1961-2007 Quotes

“Yes, we were amazed when that happened. It was a real joke to us. Konrad Lueg and I did a Happening, and we used the phrase just for the Happening, to have a catchy name for it; and then it immediately got taken up and brought into use. There's no defence against that - and really it's no bad thing.”

ArtRealUseUsedNamesTakenHappenedHappeningsJokesPhrasesBad ThingsAmazedDefenceCatchy
Book:Gerhard Richter: text : writings, interviews and letters, 1961-2007
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“Composition is a side issue. Its role in my selection of photographs is a negative one at best. By which I mean that the fascination of a photograph is not in its eccentric composition but in what it has to say: its information content. And, on the other hand, composition always also has its own fortuitous rightness.”

MeanArtHandsSidesRolesIssuesInformationNegativePhotographTechniqueCompositionSelectionFascinationEccentricFortuitous
Book:Gerhard Richter: text : writings, interviews and letters, 1961-2007
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“Contact with like-minded painters - a group means a great deal to me: nothing comes in isolation. We have worked out our ideas largely by talking them through. Shutting myself away in the country, for instance, would do nothing for me. One depends on one's surroundings. And so the exchange with other artists - and especially the collaboration with Lueg and Polke - matters a lot to me: it is part of the input that I need.”

NeedsMeanArtIdeasCountryMatterArtistDealsTalkingGroupsPaintingDependsContactPainterInstanceIsolationCollaborationSurroundingsInput
Book:Gerhard Richter: text : writings, interviews and letters, 1961-2007
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“The truth... When they have a similar structure to and are organized in as truthful a way as nature. When I look out of the window, then truth for me is the way nature shows itself in its various tones, colours and proportions. That's a truth and has its own correctness. This little slice of nature, and in fact any given piece of nature, represents to me an ongoing challenge, and is a model for my paintings.”

WayLooksLittlesArtFactsShowsGivenChallengesPiecesPaintingModelsWindowStructureVariousToneOrganizedColourProportionTruthfulOngoingCorrectness
Book:Gerhard Richter: text : writings, interviews and letters, 1961-2007
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“Illusion - or rather appearance, semblance - is the theme of my life (could be theme of speech welcoming freshmen to the Academy). All that is, seems, and is visible to us because we perceive it by the reflected light of semblance. Nothing else is visible.”

ArtLightSeemsPaintingSpeechIllusionAppearanceWelcomePerceiveThemeVisibleAcademyFreshmanSemblance
Book:Gerhard Richter: text : writings, interviews and letters, 1961-2007
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“A work of art is itself an object, first of all, and so manipulation is unavoidable: it's a prerequisite. But I needed the greater objectivity of the photograph in order to correct my own way of seeing: for instance, if I draw an object from nature, I start to stylize and to change it in accordance with my personal vision and my training. But if I paint from a photograph, I can forget all the criteria that I get from these sources. I can paint against my will, as it were. And that, to me, felt like an enrichment.”

IfsWayFirstsArtI CanOrderFeltMy OwnForgetVisionGreaterSeeingObjectsSourceNeededPhotographyTrainingDrawsArt IsPaintPhotographInstanceManipulationWorks Of ArtCriteriaObjectivityPrerequisitesEnrichmentPersonal Vision
Book:Gerhard Richter: text : writings, interviews and letters, 1961-2007
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“To me, grey is the welcome and only possible equivalent for indifference, noncommitment, absence of opinion, absence of shape. But grey, like formlessness and the rest, can be real only as an idea, and so all I can do is create a colour nuance that means grey but is not it. The painting is then a mixture of grey as a fiction and grey as a visible, designated area of colour.”

MeanArtI CanIdeasRealCan DoFictionOpinionPaintingShapesAreasAbsenceWelcomeIndifferenceColourVisibleBeing RealGreyMixturesNuance
Book:Gerhard Richter: text : writings, interviews and letters, 1961-2007
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“I believe I am looking for rightness. My work has so much to do with reality that I wanted to have a corresponding rightness. That excludes painting in imitation. In nature everything is always right: the structure is right, the proportions are good, the colours fit the forms. If you imitate that in painting, it becomes false.”

IfsBelieveArtRealityWantedFormI BelievePaintingFitStructureColourProportionImitationCorresponding
Book:Gerhard Richter: text : writings, interviews and letters, 1961-2007
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“What attracted me about my mirrors was the idea of having nothing manipulated in them. A piece of bought mirror. Just hung there, without any addition, to operate immediately and directly. Even at the risk of being boring. Mere demonstration. The mirrors, and even more the Panes of Glass, were also certainly directed against Duchamp, against his Large Glass.”

ArtIdeasPiecesRiskPaintingMirrorsMereGlassesBoringHungDemonstration
Book:Gerhard Richter: text : writings, interviews and letters, 1961-2007
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“Architecture was, or is, a kind of hobby, an inclination I have to fiddling around and building things. Putting up shelves or cupboards, or making tools, or designing houses ... it always has a functional or social motivation. If social changes are in the air, I am gripped immediately by the desire to build, and I think that I accelerate or anticipate changes in my life by doing so, at least in draft. In the case of my house, that was anticipation: in other words, first build, then change one's life.”

IfsThinkingFirstsKindArtDesireMotivationHouseSocialCasesAirDesignBuildingPaintingToolsArchitectureAnticipationHobbiesShelvesSocial ChangeInclinationAnticipateAccelerateChanging My LifeCupboardsBuilding Things
Book:Gerhard Richter: text : writings, interviews and letters, 1961-2007
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