Gerhard Richter

He is one of the probably one of the most famous artists of the 20th and 21st century. Gerhard Richter has achieved anything in his life. At auctions, his artworks are growing in millions. In the context of rankings, he has been an integral part of the top positions for decades. On this day, the exceptional artist becomes 85 and celebrates his new exhibition "Neue Bilder" at the Museum Ludwig in Cologne.

Gerhard Richter's artworks are probably the most independent ones, which came after Picasso. In his art, the controlled loss of control comes to the fore. At the same time, the most expensive artist in the world does not have to explain his images - especially the abstract ones. He usually paints the colour with a woodcurkey, passes, turns around, scratches and crumbles. This creates immense pictorial masses, which, through his long experience, also involves the inclusion of coincidence into detailed and extremely complex compositions.

On his birthday, he now enjoys a pleasantly undisturbed exhibition in his hometown Cologne. His "Betty" as a painting is there, as well as "Ella" as a photo and "Uncle Rudi" as a photo edition of the painting of 1965.

Three years ago, the planning for this exhibition began. At that time, Richter showed no interest whatsoever, and the curators were thinking about the existing collections of the museum. For example "Ema (act on stairs)" or the abstract large format with the name "Krieg" from 1981. Richter's "48 Portraits" are mixed gray depictions of photographs of German minds. These are just as hanged today as in 1972, when Richter was the first artist to exhibit at the entire German Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. Another fantastic work, which can be seen at the exhibition this time, is the print "Overview" from 1998. Richter has illustrated the lifetime of important artists from 1350 to today as a bar graph.

Now the exceptional artist was probably interested in the show. Shortly before the exhibition, he asked whether he could be given a model of the rooms. He wanted to design the hanging himself. He also provided additional 26 new abstract images. The museum management then renamed the exhibition to "Neue Bilder". Anyhow, the name is somehow misleading, since the new pictures are hardly distinguishable from the old ones. Thus, it is difficult with Gerhard Richter to distinguish early artworks from later work.

An exhibition evolved in Cologne that invites to fascinating insights into the work of the artist Gerhard Richter. The exhibition will take place at the Museum Ludwig in Cologne from today until 1st May 2017. It is worth a visit.