Artist's Books

The artist's book War Cut, designed by Gerhard Richter focuses on Abstract Painting [CR: 648-2] of 1987, which is located at Musée d'art moderne de la ville de Paris.

In May 2002, Gerhard Richter took detailed photographs of the picture, in which dark colours dominate and whose rather rough appearance is striking.

Two years later, Richter takes the photographs up again for his book project War Cut. 216 close-up photographs are juxtaposed to 216 texts from the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeinen Zeitung of 20th and 21th March 2003, the beginning of the Iraq War. Whereas Gerhard Richter assembles the pictures following aesthetical principles, the texts are mainly printed in their chronological order. The layout of the book follows a formal pattern: the photographs as well as the texts fill a space of 10 x 15 cm.

Gerhard Richter. Bücher is the first publication that exclusively addresses Gerhard Richter’s artist’s books. Starting with a brief introduction to the history of the genre, Dieter Schwarz proceeds to analyse Richter’s diverse publications, which don’t necessarily stand out with extravagant covers, but are versatile in dealing with different subjects and their presentation. The aspect of reproduction and the processing of graphical material, which plays a crucial role in Richter’s works in general, can also be found in most of his books. Schwarz adjudges Eis and Wald a special status, as they are not derived from image details like War Cut or Patterns, but consist of independent series of pictures.

In the interview with Richter, Hans Ulrich Obrist, who also collaborated with him on a number of books, discusses the artist’s books chronologically and raises detailed questions about the development and context of all of Richter’s publications. The interviewer talks to Richter about his ideals and guiding principles in painting. Obrist is mainly interested in the structure and arrangement of the books, which demonstrate a carefully conceived composition.

Gerhard Richter produced November, a series of 54 works in ink, in 2008. These works were created using a variety of ways to manipulate the consistency of ink and its flow on highly absorbent paper. The ink permeated through the sheets creating two related images, one on the front and one on the back of each of the altogether 27 sheets. In some cases Richter also applied lacquer or pencil.

The artist had a complete set of facsimiles made so both sides of the 27 sheets could be viewed at the same time. However, the sequence of mirrored pairs of images is disrupted, as some of the motifs have been rotated by 180 degrees. The book displays the images of the pairs, one on the front and one on the back of each page and ends with an overview of all 54 works. Every page is dated, mainly in sequence of their production.

The artist's book documents Gerhard Richter’s experiment of taking an image of his original Abstract Painting [CR: 724-4] and dividing it vertically into strips: first 2, then 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, up to 4096 strips. This process (twelve stages of division) results in 8190 strips, each of which is the height of the original image. With each stage of division the strips become progressively thinner (a strip of the 12th division is 0.08 mm). Endless more divisions are possible, but they would soon only become visible by enlargement. Each strip is then mirrored and repeated, which results in patterns. The number of repetitions increases with each stage of division in order to make patterns of consistent size. The result of 238 listed patterns is published on 238 double page images.

The artist's book documents Gerhard Richter’s experiment of taking an image of his original Abstract Painting [CR: 724-4] and dividing it vertically into strips: first 2, then 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, up to 4096 strips. This process (twelve stages of division) results in 8190 strips, each of which is the height of the original image. With each stage of division the strips become progressively thinner (a strip of the 12th division is 0.08 mm). Endless more divisions are possible, but they would soon only become visible by enlargement. Each strip is then mirrored and repeated, which results in patterns. The number of repetitions increases with each stage of division in order to make patterns of consistent size. The result of 238 listed patterns is published on 238 double page images.

The artist's book documents Gerhard Richter’s experiment of taking an image of his original Abstract Painting [CR: 724-4] and dividing it vertically into strips: first 2, then 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, up to 4096 strips. This process (twelve stages of division) results in 8190 strips, each of which is the height of the original image. With each stage of division the strips become progressively thinner (a strip of the 12th division is 0.08 mm). Endless more divisions are possible, but they would soon only become visible by enlargement. Each strip is then mirrored and repeated, which results in patterns. The number of repetitions increases with each stage of division in order to make patterns of consistent size. The result of 238 listed patterns is published on 238 double page images.

The artist's book documents Gerhard Richter’s experiment of taking an image of his original Abstract Painting [CR: 724-4] and dividing it vertically into strips: first 2, then 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, up to 4096 strips. This process (twelve stages of division) results in 8190 strips, each of which is the height of the original image. With each stage of division the strips become progressively thinner (a strip of the 12th division is 0.08 mm). Endless more divisions are possible, but they would soon only become visible by enlargement. Each strip is then mirrored and repeated, which results in patterns. The number of repetitions increases with each stage of division in order to make patterns of consistent size. The result of 238 listed patterns is published on 238 double page images.

The artist's book Gerhard Richter. Eis shows photographs taken by Gerhard Richter on a trip to Greenland in 1972: snowy mountains, ice floes, the vastness of the sea laden with chunks of ice, unspoiled nature. Some of the motifs can be found in Richter’s subsequent work, e.g. Iceberg in Mist [CR: 496-1]. The photographs are juxtaposed with texts which are taken from the 1871 edition of the Brockhaus encyclopaedia and relate to Greenland.

The two covers are indicative of the book’s artistic design; inside, the texts have neither a beginning nor an end, and photographs and texts are partly printed upside down. It is noteworthy that the photographs and texts are always printed in the same size, 8.5 x 12.9 cm, an area which has sometimes been left blank.

The book affords the viewer the possibility to trace this subjective experience of Greenland’s ice in a visual way, completed by neutrally communicated knowledge from the encyclopaedia.