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Abstract pictures are fictive models, because they make visible a reality that we can neither see nor describe, but whose existence we can postulate.

Gerhard Richter

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Gerhard Richter
Age: 92
Born: 1932
Born: February 9
Illustrator
Painter
Photographer
University Teacher
Visual Artist
Elbflorenz
Gehede Lixite
Geruharuto Rihitā
Gerd Richter
Neither
Fictive
Whose
Postulate
Existence
Abstraction
Reality
Describe
Make
Visible
Abstract
Pictures
Models

More quotes by Gerhard Richter

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Art is the pure realization of religious feeling, capacity for faith, longing for God. ... The ability to believe is our outstanding quality, and only art adequately translates it into reality. But when we assuage our need for faith with an ideology we court disaster.
Gerhard Richter
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What counts isn't being able to do a thing, it's seeing what it is. Seeing is the decisive act, and ultimately it places the maker and the viewer on the same level.
Gerhard Richter
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Based on mixtures of the three primary colours, along with black and white, I come up with a certain number of possible colours and, by multiplying these by two or four, I obtain a definite number of colour fields that I multiply yet again by two, etc. But the complete realization of this project demands a great deal of time and work.
Gerhard Richter
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I go to the studio every day, but I dont paint every day. I love playing with my architectural models. I love making plans. I could spend my life arranging things.
Gerhard Richter
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The year is always correct, also the month, only the day can be another. But that occurs to me only in the moment of writing it down.
Gerhard Richter
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Without form, communication stops... without form, you have everybody burbling on to themselves, whenever and however, things that no one else can understand and - rightly - no one else is interested in.
Gerhard Richter
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There is sorrow, but I hope one can see that it is sorrow for the people who died so young and so crazy, for nothing. I have respect for them, but also for their wishes, or for the power of their wishes. Because they tried to change the stupid things in the world.
Gerhard Richter
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Weeks go by, and I dont paint until finally I cant stand it any longer. I get fed up. I almost dont want to talk about it, because I dont want to become self-conscious about it, but perhaps I create these little crises as a kind of a secret strategy to push myself.
Gerhard Richter
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I like everything that has no style: dictionaries, photographs, nature, myself and my paintings. (Because style is violent, and I am not violent.)
Gerhard Richter
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I pursue no intentions, no directions I have no program, no style and no mission.
Gerhard Richter
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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.
Gerhard Richter
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The Atlas belongs to the Lenbachhaus in Munich - it's long since ceased to belong to me. Occasionally I run across it somewhere, and I think it's interesting because it looks different each time.
Gerhard Richter
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If the abstract paintings show my reality, then the landscapes and still-lifes show my yearning.
Gerhard Richter
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The political topicality of my October paintings means almost nothing to me, but in many reviews it is the first or only thing that arouses interest, and the response to the pictures varies according to current political circumstance. I find this rather a distraction.
Gerhard Richter
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Painting pictures is simply the official, the daily work, the profession, and in the case of the watercolours I can sooner afford to follow my mood, my spirits.
Gerhard Richter
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The reason these paintings are destined for New York is not because I am disappointed about a lack of German interest, but because MoMA asked me, and because I consider it to be the best museum in the world.
Gerhard Richter
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I was a student, and as such you generally rely on prior models of how to make art, but these were not satisfying. Then I discovered in photos what had been missing in paintings namely that they make a terrific variety of statements and have great substance. That is what I wanted to convey to paintings and apply to it.
Gerhard Richter
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In 1981, I think, for the Kunsthalle in Düsseldorf. Before that I designed a mirror room for Kasper König's Westkunst show, but it was never built. All that exists is the design - four mirrors for one room.
Gerhard Richter
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The photograph is the only picture that can truly convey information, even if it is technically faulty and the object can barely be identified. A painting of a murder is of no interest whatever but a photograph of a murder fascinates everyone.
Gerhard Richter
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They are specific places I have discovered here and there when I am on the road to take photos. I go especially to take photos.
Gerhard Richter