Exceptional Works: Gerhard Richter

David Zwirner is pleased to present a new work by Gerhard Richter,
STRIP-TOWER (2023), for Art Basel Unlimited 2023. Standing more than three meters tall, this multifaceted work brings together several threads of the artist’s long-standing inquiry into the nature of visual representation.

Gerhard Richter in his exhibition Gerhard Richter: Stripes & Glass, Albertinum, Dresden, Germany. Photo by Robert Michael. Courtesy ullstein bild/Getty Images

“What about the Strips? In what direction do they point?”

“I don’t know. I hope it’s to the future.”

—Gerhard Richter in conversation with Anders Kold

Gerhard Richter

STRIP-TOWER, 2023

Digital print on paper between Alu-Dibond and Perspex (Diasec), eight (8) panels

137 3/4 x 63 3/4 x 63 3/4 inches (350 x 162 x 162 cm)
Photographer: Georgios Michaloudis, farbanalyse, Cologne

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Here, for the first time, Richter presents a sculptural version of his Strip paintings (begun in 2011)—abstract compositions that combine painting, photography, and print reproduction, derived digitally from his groundbreaking Abstrakte Bilder—thus expanding into three dimensions his uniquely analytical and experimental approach to the painted medium. The work is constructed with eight glossy perpendicular panels that reflect their surroundings, collapsing the division between the picture plane and the outside world.

“As they take shape, Richter’s Strips oscillate between rational mathematics and artistic curiosity.… Richter pushes the human faculty of sight to its physical limit.”

—Janice Bretz and Kerstin Küster, Gerhard Richter: Abstraction

Gerhard Richter, Strip (926-6), 2012. Collection of the National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan

Gerhard Richter, Strip (930-7), 2015. Collection of the Long Museum, Shanghai

Gerhard Richter, Strip (930-1), 2013. Collection of the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark

Gerhard Richter, Strip (921-5), 2011. Collection of the Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris

Gerhard Richter, Strip (921-6), 2011. Collection of Tate Modern, London

Richter’s Strips represent a dialogue between painting, photography, digital reproduction, and abstraction. Each work comprises a unique digital print face-mounted to Perspex, lending an inherently reflective quality to the surface and removing traces of the artist’s hand.

Gerhard Richter, Abstraktes Bild (Abstract Painting) (724-4), 1990. This painting is the source for Richter's Strip paintings.

Richter began the series by photographing his painting Abstraktes Bild (Abstract Painting) (724-4), 1990, which was made using his well-known technique of attenuating his brushstrokes by dragging a squeegee across the surface of the canvas, creating a textured and dynamic field of colors.

Gerhard Richter, STRIP-TOWER, 2023 (detail). Photo by Georgios Michaloudis, farbanalyse, Cologne

The artist subsequently subjected the photograph to a digital process in which he split the image vertically into mirrored halves, and continued to split and mirror the results, repeating the same process until the intricately textured surface of the original painting became an array of flat lines, each representing exactly a 0.08-millimeter slice of the original photograph. These lines were then stretched horizontally to create the final composition.

For each unique Strip, Richter isolated and re-combined different sections of the striations derived from the original photograph, resulting in infinite digital permutations of perfectly parallel lines.

Installation view, Gerhard Richter: Painting After All, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Met Breuer, New York, March 2020. © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Additionally, since the 1960s, Richter has created works using glass and mirrored surfaces. Harnessing these materials’ reflective properties, the installations engage with human perception and the built environment. In the present installation, Richter combines the techniques and conceptual impulses behind these two important bodies of work—the freestanding glass sculptures and the Strip paintings—into a multi-paneled tower, to be experienced in the round.

Installation view, Gerhard Richter, Marian Goodman Gallery, New York, 2011. Wall, from left: Strip (920-1), 2011; Strip (920-2), 2011; Strip (920-3), 2011. Foreground: 6 stehende Scheiben (6 Standing Panes) (879-5), 2002/2011

“[Richter’s Strips and glass sculptures] contest traditional concepts of painting more than anything we have encountered in the artist’s oeuvre before.”

—Benjamin H. D. Buchloh

Installation view, Gerhard Richter, STRIP-TOWER, 2023. Photo by Georgios Michaloudis, farbanalyse, Cologne. All works and images © Gerhard Richter 2023, courtesy Gerard Richter Archive Dresden, unless otherwise noted

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