Gerhard Richter: STRIP-TOWER
A new large-scale public work at Serpentine South by Gerhard Richter.
STRIP-TOWER (2023) expands on Richter’s six–decade exploration of painting, photography, digital reproduction and abstraction.
Richter began developing his series of Strip Paintings in 2010, inspired by an earlier ‘squeegee painting’ titled Abstract Painting 724-4 (1990). This painting was then photographed, scanned, digitally manipulated, and divided into two strips, then four, eight, sixteen and thirty-two. The vertical strips of the painting were stretched across horizontally and laminated onto aluminium and covered with Perspex. STRIP-TOWER employs a similar method, in which colourful striped ceramic tiles form a dense composition covering two perpendicular panels. The intersecting panels create a cross section that visitors can stand within.
STRIP-TOWER builds on Richter’s ongoing interest in the idea of reflections, systems and repetitions, which could be seen in 4900 Colours, exhibited at Serpentine in 2008. Comprised of bright monochrome squares randomly arranged in a grid formation, the works in 4900 Colours created stunning sheets of kaleidoscopic colour. STRIP-TOWER’s glossy tiles subtly mirror the viewer and the surroundings of the Royal Parks. This new commission is the latest in a long-standing series of significant public presentations in the Royal Parks since Serpentine’s foundation in 1970.
Artist Bio
In his multi-layered oeuvre, Gerhard Richter deals with fundamental questions of painting. He was born in Dresden on 9 February 1932 and he apprenticed in 1949 as an advertising painter. In 1950, he began working as a stage-set painter in the Stadttheater in Zittau. He began painting at the DEWAG in Zittau. In 1951, he was accepted by the Dresden Art Academy, where he studied painting until 1956. In 1953, he learned mural painting under Prof. Heinz Lohmar and visited the first documenta exhibition in Kassel, Germany. On graduating in 1956, he painted the mural Lebensfreude at the Deutsches Hygiene-Museum Dresden. Having fled to the Federal Republic of Germany in 1961, Richter studied until 1965 at the Düsseldorf State Academy of Art, where he taught as a professor from 1971. In 1972, he was the first artist to present a solo exhibition in the German Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. He also participated in Documenta 5 (and later in Documentas 10 and 12) in Kassel. The same year, he exhibited his work Atlas for the first time, at the Museum voor Hedendaagse Kunst, Utrecht. Among the numerous honours he has received in his career are the Golden Lion at the 47th Venice Biennale and the Praemium Imperiale Prize, Tokyo, both awarded in 1997. In 2006 the Gerhard Richter Archive at the Dresden State Art Collections was founded. Richter’s many solo exhibitions have included Tate, London, (1991, 2011), Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, (1986, 2012), and MoMA, New York, (2002), The Met Breuer, New York (2020); and The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo (2022) among many other institutions. He lives and works in Cologne.
