GERHARD RICHTER

GERHARD RICHTER IS AN IMPORTANT German painter whose work spans five decades. Most noted for his photo-realism images, particularly the ones that are blurred, just as they would appear blurred in a shifting photograph, Gerhard Richter was born in Dresden, Germany, in 1932.

Richter's artistic achievements vacillate between pure abstraction and a reconstructed form of realism. His realistic paintings, based primarily on personal photographs and images from newspapers, range in subject matter from the banal, like rolls of toilet paper, to the extremely potent, such as famous Nazi "doctor" Werner Hyde. The paintings have in common an emotional remove; the re-creating of photographic images points us toward our own possible emotional detachment to the influx of images in the world. A blurred chair, Jackie Kennedy, burning candles, family portraits—Richter lays them all out before us as if to say, Here, they are all the same. The insightful text by MoMA curator Robert Storr provides an in-depth look at Richter's life in postwar Germany, tracing the influences and environment that made his work possible.

Richter is by many considered a "conceptual painter" whose "paintings are statements about ideas for paintings". Richter himself said that he wanted to express "the inadequacy in relation to what is expected of painting" through his art, the inadequacy of the making of images and the critical examination of it. He is considered a master of "deconstruction" of formal conventions of painting. He kept a "skeptical distance from vanguardists and conservatives alike regarding what painting should be". According to Storr, all of Richter's works point toward "the basic loss of bearings"; he is "an image-struck poet of alertness and restraint, of doubt and daring". Whatever your interpretation of Gerhard Richter's oeuvre may be, he is a major contemporary artist.

THE BEAVER MILL STUDIOS

Beaver Mill Studios in North Adams, MA

I WAS POISED to move into this building. With 4000 square feet of working studio space, I was convinced I had found my permanant and final working space, large enough for large art. These several large tables would have been tremendous assets for someone with ambitions to open up dozens of boxes with solid projects in each of them.

But reality hit home hard. Home being in DC, North Adams is nearly eight hours away on a good drive. Moving into the Beaver Mill Studios would have taken a tremendous amount of energy and capital, and given my failing health this winter, prospects were bleak that I would be able to suffer what is always an unforgivingly frigid winter in that corner of Massachusetts nestled remotely into the Berkshire Mountains. So...

My pursuit of a credible art form still relies upon my time here at 52 O Street.

INVESTING IN THE ART MARKET

Looking out from Bertha's in Fells Point, Baltimore

By Deborah Brewster of The Financial Times. The article was originally published on July 13, 2007.

ART HAS EMERGED as a serious alternative asset class in the past few years, in spite of the disdain of art lovers and the scepticism of many dealers and collectors.

Randall Willette, who advises collectors, says: "There are increasingly two types of buyer in the market. The idea that you should buy purely because of your passion is becoming less common. More buyers are coming from a financial background and people want to support their buying decisions with financial information. Increasingly, art is part of the balance sheet of private clients."

There are two questions for investors to consider before treating art as part of their financial portfolio. The broader one is whether the art world can be considered a true market in the same way as the stock market is. The second is whether the price boom is cyclical, or part of a longer-term trend that will see prices move higher permanently. The answers may not be conclusive, but it is important to bear them in mind before following the legions of new buyers with the idea of making a killing.

Artworks are bought and sold at prices reflecting perceptions of their value, and these can change sharply. In that sense, it is a market, but many are unconvinced that it can ever operate according to the rules that govern other asset classes.

"I love art, and I love a bargain, but the fact is you cannot apply any kind of valuation analysis to artworks," says one longstanding collector who is prominent in the financial world.

"When I analyse a stock, I look at future income stream, how it is priced in relation to its competitors and the quality of management, and other criteria that can be measured quantitatively. The sole measure of an artwork is the cultural perception of value attributed to it. That is not something you can make any reasonable prediction about in relation to its future value."

This has not stopped an avalanche of financial analysis on the art market. Much of it sheds light on which types of works command value and how that value has changed over time.

Some of it bears out what dealers might intuitively understand. Research has shown that figurative works are valued more highly than landscapes; that the larger any given painting is, the higher the price per square inch; and that middle-tier works are likely to rise in value further than top-priced masterpieces. However, most people who have built up collections that have risen in value did not pay a great deal of attention to price, but rather to a unifying aesthetic.

As records topple at each auction, the stories of profits are encouraging more buyers into the market.

Adam Sender, a New York hedge fund manager, has said he had made more money from his art collection than his hedge fund.

Art market cycles usually last six to seven years, and the present upswing has been going for six. By that measure, a correction can be expected soon. The most recent Impressionist and contemporary auctions surpassed the price and volumes of the peak of the last boom in 1990.

However, the market is not monolithic. It spans collectables such as stamps, fountain pens and teddy bears (which have rocketed in value), to contemporary sculpture and photography, to decorative arts, to paintings by Picasso.

Each cycle has its favourites. Last time round, in the late 1980s, the Impressionists had their day. Japanese property tycoons formed a passion for works by Van Gogh and Rembrandt. A few years later, the value of such works had plummeted. The latest cycle has seen a huge rise in the value of contemporary works. However, another new aspect to the present cycle is the global nature of demand. It is not just one group of people buying one type of painting.

Newly wealthy people in Russia, China and India are buying works by indigenous artists as well as by western artists. US and European hedge fund managers are buying Chinese contemporary art as well as Andy Warhol. Demand is lifting prices across a range of categories. Michael Moses, who, with Jianping Mei, devised an Impressionist and contemporary art market index, has launched a Latin American index. But even the most optimistic believe some sectors, such as contemporary art, are due for a drop in prices.

DECONSTRUCTING REPUTATION

Artist Peter Harper in his 52 O Street studio

ON TUESDAY, July 24, 2007, fellow 52 O Street artist Stevens Jay Carter posted a few questions on his blog.

The other day I was viewing the work of an artist. As I was admiring the work I began to think to myself is it possible to accept my thoughts if I removed myself from my association with this artist? What would I actually think about this work through a stranger's eyes, unaware of the artist's history or background?

I responded, "Conversely, can the opinion of a critic or arbiter of a work of art be judged without including such biases as "credentials" or "personality" or "sexual orientation" of that critic, whether he be of some renown for such services or merely an ordinary passersby? Schools of thought betray themselves in this argument.

"Basically, there is always more than one way to do nearly anything under the sun. So, in judging a work of art, there will be some who insist upon knowing the "artist" and others who deny the importance of such criteria.

"After all, do we need to know anything at all about the creator of the polio vaccine or the bicycle to deem worthy these works?

"And recall de Kooning, who is damned near unique in his field in appreciating the skills and artsmanship of the ordinary house painter or artisan, while most of us who posture within the art world would simply laugh at such a charming but gross sentimentality."

I thought that I was saying something real, but I had missed the mark. I knew that humans are inescapably drawn to fame and reputation. Human fascination with success and prestige is such that we are not surprised when artists, even iconoclastic artists mimic that old EF Hutton television commercial, when EF Hutton speaks, the whole world stops to listen.

Another 52 O Street fellow, Peter Harper then opined, "Pablo Picasso was an asshole!!! But a great painter. He wouldn't be my friend but I admire his work."

Yes, but we can never escape the sway that a Baselitz, a Warhol, or a Basquiat holds and the realization that an imitator will never measure up to the power of the original master with all that implies.

INTERVIEW WITH GERHARD RICHTER

I WAS RECENTLY introduced to the reputation of the highly regarded German painter Gerhard Richter by a collector who bought a small work of mine. Some consider Richter the greatest living artist today. This collector, a philosophical writer and novelist, was sure I would find this noteworthy man of particular interest, specifically the painter's extensive pronouncements on art.

Here is a brief snippet from an interview I found fascinating, and while the bulk of my current work has little in common with Richter's, I do agree with his declared independence from the hordes and the art theorists, despite my penchant for muddying my own waters.

There is a substantial body of work on Richter to be found on the web. I think, for my part, Gerhard Richter may very well herald a shift away from the figurative towards abstraction as a matter of confidence building. Time will tell.

From the Journal of Contemporary Art, January 15, 1990. Translated from the German by Klaus Ottmann:

Sabine Schütz: About a year ago you created a great stir with your painting cycle "18. Oktober 1977." This group of fifteen paintings, done in the black & white blurred photographic style of your earlier work grapples with the death of the RFA [Red Army Faction] terrorists in the Stammheim prison and unleashed a controversial and emotional discussion which went far beyond a purely artistic debate. Were you pursuing with these paintings a direct political concern?

Gerhard Richter: No direct political concern, especially not in the sense of political painting which has always been understood as politically left, as art which exclusively criticized the so-called bourgeois-capitalistic conditions—that was not my concern.

Schütz: But the subject has not only been highly explosive but it was also expressly politically left . . .

Richter: . . . which now can be considered completely laid to rest . . .

Schütz: . . . exactly, and it is also already history. One could ask now why you came forward with these paintings in 1989 and not already ten years ago?

Richter: This time distance was probably necessary. But I cannot exactly explain the reasons for making something at this or at that point in time; something like that does not proceed by plan but rather unconsciously. It seems important to me that the paintings now, with the breakdown of the socialist systems, obtain another, more general component which they did not have so evidently a year ago. On the other side, I shun to talk about the concerns or statements of the paintings. I do not want to narrow them down through interpretation.

Schütz: Do you see the terrorists today as victims of a false idea which was inevitably doomed to failure?

Richter: Definitely. Nevertheless I also feel a certain sympathy for these people and for their desperate desire for change. I can understand very well if one cannot find this world acceptable at all. Furthermore, they were also part of a corrective which we will first be missing in the future. We will find other attempts at criticism eventually which will be less sentimental or superstitious and more realistic and therefore more effective—I hope.

Schütz: This cycle has been described as a resuscitation of historical painting which has been largely ignored by modern and contemporary art. Would you agree to this categorization?

Richter: This does not interest me that much. Even when it occurred to me, while painting, that these pictures could be regarded as historical paintings, that is, as something reactionary, it didn't make any difference to me. This is more a problem for theoreticians.

Schütz: In your journal you once said that it shouldn't actually be possible to paint the way you paint: without subject matter. Was it different with this cycle? Was there a subject matter?

Richter: Yes, there was. But this "black" note referred more to the abstract paintings and beyond that to the general helplessness and powerlessness which then of course can itself become a subject matter. But on the other hand, one has sometimes enough motivation which renders questions such as these abstract—one then just paints.

Schütz: When you begin a painting, do you always know from the start what you want to paint? Could one say that you are a conceptual artist?

Richter: No, that I am not, and I don't always know what I should paint or how the painting should look in the end. Even with the Oktober cycle I did not know what kind of painting would come out of it. I had an enormous selection of photographs and I also had quite different ideas. Everything should have been much more comprehensive, much more to do with the life of the depicted, and at the end there was this small selection: nine subjects and very much focused towards death, almost against my intention.

Schütz: One would not necessarily have expected from a painter who twenty-five years ago already once painted toilet paper, to confront a subject so rich in content. Even the record player is in itself a banal object. However, the relation to the pictorial subject seems to have changed considerably since that time.

Richter: Not considerably, because a toilet-paper roll is not necessarily a funny picture. Neither is it true that I am now old enough to paint only sad things. But the record player painting is of course a very loaded painting, since the viewer knows that it is the record player of Andreas Baader, that in it was hidden the deathly weapon, etc. That doesn't make it a better painting, but it obtains first more attention, because one can attach more of a narrative to it.

Read it all.

CONSIDERING POLITICAL ART

So argues Nick222:

Actually, for reasons that I detail in a my blog, I think that Geert Wilders made a mistake by producing the film and would make another mistake by releasing it. Of course I agree that Wilders has the freedom to offend Islamic ideas and agree with him that the Koran is "a fascist book inciting hatred and violence", but (as Thoreau would say), Wilders is "hacking at the branches of evil" rather than "striking at the root."

To strike at the root (and more), I think that the ideas of C.W. Walton, Jefferson, and H.L. Mencken are crucial. Respectively they are:

"Believers are interested in fulfilling emotional and spiritual needs, not intellectual needs. In some cases, one might as well try to use reason on a dog. For many people God is primarily a warm feeling. How can one argue with a warm feeling? Arguing with someone who places reason below faith... is blowing against the wind." (C.W. Walton)

"Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them…" (Thomas Jefferson)

"The liberation of the human mind has never been furthered by dunderheads; it has been furthered by gay fellows who heaved dead cats into sanctuaries and then went roistering down the highways of the world, proving to all men that doubt, after all, was safe – that the god in the sanctuary was finite in his power and hence a fraud. One horse-laugh is worth ten thousand syllogisms. It is not only more effective; it is also vastly more intelligent." (H.L. Mencken)

He then concluded:

Therefore, my recommendation to Wilders would be that, if he wants to help both his homeland and humanity, then he shouldn’t release his film criticizing the Koran. Not that the criticism isn’t correct, but it’ll just harden the Muslims’ bunker mentality. Instead, he should (for example) hire some competent comedians whose wisecracks would ridicule all religions, excoriate all clerics, and most importantly, get all who bought into their clerics' con games rolling in the aisles—not in some religious trance but laughing at themselves for paying fortunes, forfeiting their freedoms, for permission to live within fairy tales.

But not all people agree that chopping at the tree of religion is the intelligent thing to do. Islam is a political manifesto dressed up in the rag doll outfits of religion. We must address it the same way we addressed Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and Imperial Japan—as a very dangerous political ideology that requires a thunderous defeat. Whacking at the persistent windmills of religion is not going to solve our immediate problem. Only then will the "arts of life" survive to encourage us another day.

We can an undaunted quote generator for these two gems:

Edmund Burke once wrote, "No one could make a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little. All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

And if that was not plain enough, shall we turn to Sir Winston Churchill, who observed that "When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber."

GT

BERLIN GALLERY HARASSED BY MUSLIMS

A BERLIN GALLERY has temporarily closed an exhibition of satirical works by a group of Danish artists after six Muslim youths threatened violence unless one of the posters depicting the Kaaba shrine in Mecca was removed, it said on Thursday.

The Galerie Nord in central Berlin said it had closed its “Zionist Occupied Government” show of works by Surrend, a group of artists who say they poke fun at powerful people and ideological conflicts. Four days after the exhibition opened, a group of angry Muslims stormed into the gallery, shouting demands that one of the 21 posters should be removed, said the gallery.“They were very aggressive and shouted at an employee that the poster should be taken down otherwise they would throw stones and use violence,” the gallery’s artistic director Ralf Hartmann told Reuters. The Muslims objected to a depiction of the Kaaba—the ancient shrine in Mecca’s Grand Mosque which Muslims face to say their prayers—which gave a “bitingly satirical commentary against radicalism,” said the gallery in a statement.

To his credit, Hartmann has said the gallery was working with German authorities to improve security and he hoped to re-open the show as soon as possible.“It would be unacceptable if individual social groups were in a position to exercise censorship over art and the freedom of expression,” said the gallery in a statement.

It’s about time some Western artists stepped up to the plate on this issue. This is a very serious issue, and since I am in the arts myself, a humble painter in Washington, DC, I know that few "political" artists are tackling the Islamic problem with anything more than smug indifference.

In fact, just the opposite position rules. Sadly, 95% of the art being created today in this most political of cities, and I speak from the underground art movement, is frivolous and redundant, lost in fairy tales and harmless charm, and anything remotely “controversial” and it’s not anymore because how many times can Christianity or homophobia or the president be attacked in the generic way that artists depict their hyperventilated disgust with religion, sexual mores, or politics, and it still be new, iconoclastic, or controversial? But with all the world in flames and blood, hovering at the brink of financial crisis, most of the “ruthless honesty” work is anti-American at worst, anti-war (lofty) at best, and nothing is ever presented that even hints of global incrimination due the jihadists and their copious allies strutting about in shepherd’s clothing and Brooks Brothers suits.

But what can be expected otherwise? The art world, unlike the more recently abducted halls of lower and higher education, has long been the high-browed bastion of the liberal cognoscente, and today’s system of wine-tasting galleries and its stiltifying air of mass dementia is now vigorously geared to the Left.

Scandal is often the fast track in the whirl to “make” an artist, but history probably proves that this model holds only if breaking “preferred” molds. Let’s hope Berlin doesn’t bend knee to this Islamic thuggery. It will only encourage more outrage. Don’t we all deserve better than this?