Nov 04 2002
Right from wrong
Sometimes, it’s nice to be proved wrong.
Can you believe I said that? She who is always right?
After work on Friday, I went to MOMA, with the intention of seeing the exhibit of Lewis Carroll’s* photographs. On arriving at the museum, I discovered not only that my membership had lapsed (a problem which has been rectified), but that there is a wonderful artist I had never heard of before and whose works I had never seen, a problem also rectified on the same day.
Before I reveal the artist’s identity, I have a confession to make, which is: I have never been to Germany or Austria, and that those Germanic parts of the world don’t appeal to me in the slightest. A friend kindly pointed out to me recently, and with some truth, that this means that I am seeing these places only through the prism of others’ experiences, which is probably true, but still doesn’t have me reaching for the phone and calling Lufthansa.
Having said all that, I will now say this: Gerhard Richter, the subject of the MOMA exhibit, 40 Years of Painting, has a versatility and range I have never before witnessed in any artist ever. Most artists stay within a certain scale, big or small, and paint similar subjects (portraits; landscapes), and develop a style over the years that is uniquely his/her own. But Richter is equally successful at large and small scale, abstract paintings and paintings that look like artistically blurred photos. It amazed me to think that all of these paintings- rooms of them – were painted by the same man, and painted well.
To give you some idea, here are three examples:
And they were all painted in oil, on canvas. Amazing.
*Am I the only one not convinced that he was a raging pervert? That seemed to be the gist of most of the remarks I overheard while looking at the photos.