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Lot Essay
Reduced to a simplified mesh of whites, greys and blacks, the aerial view shown in Stadtbild M1, painted in 1968, has an abstract quality about it that cuts to the heart of Richter's experimental art. This image appears to take the visual language of Abstract Expressionism, with its thickly applied daubs of paint in seemingly random forms, and yet is clearly taken from a photographic source. Richter has thus performed an intellectual somersault, refusing to allow the viewer to take the image for granted. That Richter has made a work that mimics Abstract Expressionism, yet is in fact a form of landscape painting, adds to the sense that, with deft sleight of hand, he has turned two artistic styles inside out. In this way, Stadtbild M1 is the unlikely heir of Richter's color-chart paintings, themselves explorations of abstraction and its limitations.
Working from a photograph, Richter sought to illustrate the arbitrary nature of art, and also of the act of seeing. He has, in a painterly manner, 'blown up' a photographic image, in theory contributing nothing original or personal to the work.
During the 1960s in particular, Richter's choice of images, sometimes pornographic, sometimes political, demanded some form of emotional reaction from the viewer. In Stadtbild M1, which Richter lists as the first of his aerial townscapes, the view from above has resonances for the viewer that involve war. As a child, Richter had spent time helping to clear Dresden's rubble, and it is therefore fitting that his townscapes explored the destroyed, the saved and the reconstructed, sometimes perversely showing the drab constructions that came to replace fine old areas, new concrete edifices that came to dominate the German urban landscape and embodied on a monumental scale a generation's disillusionment. In Stadtbild M1, however, Munich is shown from above with gardens and courtyards clearly visible. This image is similar to the aerial views used by bomber pilots on both sides during the Second World War. Not only has Richter created an abstract pattern that the viewer cannot help but understand, but he has also deliberately chosen a view that will necessarily produce a strong emotional response.
Gerhard Richter, Atlas, aerial views
Working from a photograph, Richter sought to illustrate the arbitrary nature of art, and also of the act of seeing. He has, in a painterly manner, 'blown up' a photographic image, in theory contributing nothing original or personal to the work.
During the 1960s in particular, Richter's choice of images, sometimes pornographic, sometimes political, demanded some form of emotional reaction from the viewer. In Stadtbild M1, which Richter lists as the first of his aerial townscapes, the view from above has resonances for the viewer that involve war. As a child, Richter had spent time helping to clear Dresden's rubble, and it is therefore fitting that his townscapes explored the destroyed, the saved and the reconstructed, sometimes perversely showing the drab constructions that came to replace fine old areas, new concrete edifices that came to dominate the German urban landscape and embodied on a monumental scale a generation's disillusionment. In Stadtbild M1, however, Munich is shown from above with gardens and courtyards clearly visible. This image is similar to the aerial views used by bomber pilots on both sides during the Second World War. Not only has Richter created an abstract pattern that the viewer cannot help but understand, but he has also deliberately chosen a view that will necessarily produce a strong emotional response.
Gerhard Richter, Atlas, aerial views