Images composed of very narrow strips of bright colours, precisely arranged. So precisely, you wonder if these could be painted by hand – though that would hardly be possible. Kerstin Küster, an expert on Gerhard Richter, explains the background to this series which was inspired by one of his own Abstract Paintings:
“This work is characterised by its very colourful appearance – so in comparison to his other Abstract Paintings at that time, it is a very colourful work using the entire spectrum of colour tones. Richter then digitised this abstract work.”
On a computer, Richter divided, reflected and repeated the digitised image, first by two, then four, eight, sixteen, and so on. And –
“... If you do that 4096 times, you end up with very, very narrow strips of colour.”
In a next step, Richter selected individual colour strips, lengthening them digitally before finally printing them out. The result looked very much like the finished strip pictures, but he was still not entirely happy with the result.
“So he had this strip picture as a small print – and then he did something which left his printers less than happy. He took a pair of scissors, cut the strips up, rearranged them and sent the new image back to the printers. From that model, they compiled a new digital image which was then printed in a seven colour process.”
So Richter’s strip pictures are actually prints created through a combination of coincidence and artistic design. An artist and a computer – working together as a team.
- Location & Dating
- 2012
- Material & Technique
- Digital printing on paper between Alu Dibond and Perspex (Diasec)
- Dimenions
- 210 x 230 cm
- Museum
- Galerie Neue Meister
- Inventory number
- Inv.-Nr. 2013/28