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Lot Essay
Emerging from a rich lineage of German contemporary painting, Daniel Richter’s imposing canvases merge chromatically rich abstraction with a powerful form of figuration. Executed at a pivotal point in his career, Tarifa is a monumental composition that combines journalistic source material with the artist’s ability to create hyper-stylized worlds. Part of a group of early works Richter made during his transition from his previous Junge Wilde style into his now-signature brand of psychedelic figuration, the present example has become an icon within his growing oeuvre. Exhibited as a cornerstone of the pivotal Radical Figures: Painting in the New Millennium exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery, London in 2020, Tarifa encapsulates Richter’s ability to create complex visions with a fragile connection to the real world. “Painting is like music—precise and yet unclear,” Richter has explained. “The quality of an image isn’t something you can translate into language. If you could do such a thing, then you wouldn’t need an image in the first place” (D. Richter, quoted in L. Beisswanger, “Join the Joyride—Painting and Music in the Works of Daniel Richter,” Schirn Mag, October 20, 2015). Instilling his work with a palpable energy, Richter references the historic genre of expressionism within a resolutely contemporary context.
Rendered on an epic scale, Richter’s vertical composition towers over the viewer. In the upper register, huddled figures weigh down an orange inflatable dinghy as it threatens to sink into the dark water that surrounds them. Flecks of white and gray indicate a choppy sea and create an ominous sense of energy around the subjects. In contrast to their gloomy surroundings, the colorful rendition of the occupants of the boat is in opposition to the rest of the composition. Emerald green, magenta, and glowing gold are paired with blue, white, and brown strokes in an intricate compilation of hues that resembles a conflation of heat maps and haute couture. The people themselves are unfamiliar, their smooth, abstracted features shimmering in multifaceted crystalline tones.
Though it has been heavily transformed as it was formed through Richter’s meticulous brush, Tarifa has its basis in reality. Part of a series drawing upon real-life events, the artist’s composition stems from a photograph that was published alongside an article on African migrants in 2000. The original source shows several people floundering in a boat as they made their way to the Spanish municipality of Tarifa on the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula. The photograph was taken during the day when the glowing sun reflected off the water and illuminated the tense scene. Richter transposed this image and created an alternate reality that is tangentially connected to ours yet converts something viscerally real into something otherworldly. Working with the history of seascapes, ocean rescues, and nautical settings, Tarifa has a kinship with the history paintings of old. It is often spoken about in conjunction with Martin Kippenberger’s appropriation of Théodore Géricault’s Raft of the Medusa (1819) in 1990 or the sometimes watery expanses of Peter Doig’s Magical Realism. However, unlike those nods to Romanticism and their direct commentary on the human condition, art historian Beate Ermacora posits, “[the] scene relegates the whole Romantic tradition of heroic seascapes to the category of a sentimental delusion: these figures are not poetic meditations on the human condition, but emblems of a very real crisis” (B. Ermacora, quoted in Daniel Richter: Billard um halbzehn, exh. cat., Schleswig-Holsteinischen Kunstverein, Kunsthalle zu Kiel, 2001, p. 119). Actively drawing from the past while pushing toward a new understanding, Richter paved a tangential path for himself.
Educated in Hamburg in the early 1990s, Richter came into contact with artists like Kippenberger who were pushing for a reassessment of German painting. He later worked as Albert Oehlen’s studio assistant where he fortified his understanding of visually complex canvases. As he grew into his own, the young artist looked back on the Romantic, humanist views of Caspar David Friedrich and the Expressionist tendencies of painters like Edvard Munch and James Ensor. Beginning as an energetic abstractionist, Richter gradually introduced political and figurative content into his compositions that brought a palpable gravitas to the acid colors and disconcerting stares of his enigmatic subjects. About this decision, the painter noted that he felt “a need to get closer to a reality that I experience as unsavory. My need to express myself as a social entity was so strong that I wanted to convey it to others” (D. Richter cited in: D. Hughes, “Daniel Richter and the Problem of Political Painting Today,” New German Critique, No. 108, Fall 2009, p. 154). By addressing political source material and subjects in his work, Richter allowed for a new assessment of how we view the world through images. Rather than tackling universal truths or commenting on the stark reality of our news cycle, works like Tarifa elicit a more introspective view.
Rendered on an epic scale, Richter’s vertical composition towers over the viewer. In the upper register, huddled figures weigh down an orange inflatable dinghy as it threatens to sink into the dark water that surrounds them. Flecks of white and gray indicate a choppy sea and create an ominous sense of energy around the subjects. In contrast to their gloomy surroundings, the colorful rendition of the occupants of the boat is in opposition to the rest of the composition. Emerald green, magenta, and glowing gold are paired with blue, white, and brown strokes in an intricate compilation of hues that resembles a conflation of heat maps and haute couture. The people themselves are unfamiliar, their smooth, abstracted features shimmering in multifaceted crystalline tones.
Though it has been heavily transformed as it was formed through Richter’s meticulous brush, Tarifa has its basis in reality. Part of a series drawing upon real-life events, the artist’s composition stems from a photograph that was published alongside an article on African migrants in 2000. The original source shows several people floundering in a boat as they made their way to the Spanish municipality of Tarifa on the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula. The photograph was taken during the day when the glowing sun reflected off the water and illuminated the tense scene. Richter transposed this image and created an alternate reality that is tangentially connected to ours yet converts something viscerally real into something otherworldly. Working with the history of seascapes, ocean rescues, and nautical settings, Tarifa has a kinship with the history paintings of old. It is often spoken about in conjunction with Martin Kippenberger’s appropriation of Théodore Géricault’s Raft of the Medusa (1819) in 1990 or the sometimes watery expanses of Peter Doig’s Magical Realism. However, unlike those nods to Romanticism and their direct commentary on the human condition, art historian Beate Ermacora posits, “[the] scene relegates the whole Romantic tradition of heroic seascapes to the category of a sentimental delusion: these figures are not poetic meditations on the human condition, but emblems of a very real crisis” (B. Ermacora, quoted in Daniel Richter: Billard um halbzehn, exh. cat., Schleswig-Holsteinischen Kunstverein, Kunsthalle zu Kiel, 2001, p. 119). Actively drawing from the past while pushing toward a new understanding, Richter paved a tangential path for himself.
Educated in Hamburg in the early 1990s, Richter came into contact with artists like Kippenberger who were pushing for a reassessment of German painting. He later worked as Albert Oehlen’s studio assistant where he fortified his understanding of visually complex canvases. As he grew into his own, the young artist looked back on the Romantic, humanist views of Caspar David Friedrich and the Expressionist tendencies of painters like Edvard Munch and James Ensor. Beginning as an energetic abstractionist, Richter gradually introduced political and figurative content into his compositions that brought a palpable gravitas to the acid colors and disconcerting stares of his enigmatic subjects. About this decision, the painter noted that he felt “a need to get closer to a reality that I experience as unsavory. My need to express myself as a social entity was so strong that I wanted to convey it to others” (D. Richter cited in: D. Hughes, “Daniel Richter and the Problem of Political Painting Today,” New German Critique, No. 108, Fall 2009, p. 154). By addressing political source material and subjects in his work, Richter allowed for a new assessment of how we view the world through images. Rather than tackling universal truths or commenting on the stark reality of our news cycle, works like Tarifa elicit a more introspective view.