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Gerhard Richter

On the island of Teshima, which is also the site of the Setouchi International Art Festival, 14 transparent glass panels are lined up at slightly different angles to form a continuous “C” shape.

This work, known as Gerhard Richter: 14 Glass Panels / Teshima, consists of fourteen transparent glass panes, each measuring 190 cm by 180 cm, arranged in a gentle V-shape with subtle variations in angle. Extending over a total length of approximately 8 meters, the glass panels stand upright on a base, reflecting the surrounding natural light, landscape, and even the viewer’s own image. The work subtly changes its appearance depending on the time of day, weather, and season.

The structure that houses the installation was also designed based on Richter’s own ideas. It is a simple rectangular building nestled on a slope surrounded by bamboo forest. The sea-facing wall is entirely made of glass, and tall vertical windows are installed in the side walls to allow ample natural light to flow into the space.

Gerhard Richter (born 1932) is considered one of the most important contemporary artists from the late 20th to the 21st century. Originally from Germany, his work spans a wide range of styles and media, including photo-realistic painting, abstract painting, installations, and glass works. Throughout his career, he has continuously shifted his techniques and approaches, persistently exploring fundamental questions such as “What is an image?” and “What is truth?”

Gerhard Richter’s body of work, though diverse in technique and concept, consistently unfolds as a profound inquiry into the very act of seeing. His artistic practice exists in the interstices between dualities—painting and photography, abstraction and realism, chance and intention, reality and memory—quietly yet incisively unsettling the boundaries that separate them.

Characteristics and Style of His Work

Richter’s photo paintings are based on black-and-white photographs, which he meticulously reconstructs with a paintbrush, deliberately adding a blur to visualize the ambiguity of memory and the uncertainty of history. For example, Ella (2007) is a photo painting based on a photograph of his granddaughter. It combines photographic realism with painterly blurring to quietly express universal themes such as memory, time, and existence through an intimate family portrait. Beneath the restrained brushwork, a deep sense of affection emerges, making it one of Richter’s rare and deeply personal depictions of family.

In his abstract paintings, Richter uses a squeegee to layer and drag paint across the canvas, incorporating elements of chance into the work. This technique allows control and unpredictability to coexist, creating a unique pictorial world defined by what he calls “planned accident.”

In his Color Chart series, Richter arranges colors either mathematically or randomly, exploring themes of visual order, chance, and the elimination of emotion. These works reflect a pure interest in “seeing color itself,” expressing an intellectual and structural beauty stripped of emotional and narrative meaning.

In his works using glass and mirrors, Richter harnesses reflection and transparency to constantly unsettle the viewer’s position and perspective, posing fundamental questions such as “What does it mean to see?” and “What is space?” His 14 Glass Panels on Teshima is part of this lineage of visual and spatial experimentation.

Philosophy and Themes

A profound philosophical consciousness runs through Gerhard Richter’s work. He has famously stated that “there is no such thing as a true image,” asserting that neither realism nor abstraction can escape the fundamental subjectivity of the act of seeing. This perspective is deeply entwined with the historical traumas of his lifetime—such as the Nazi regime and the Cold War—and his artistic practice serves as a means of confronting and sublimating these experiences through painting.

Richter’s stance resonates with the phenomenology of thinkers like Edmund Husserl and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. In particular, Merleau-Ponty’s idea that “to see is to interact with the world” aligns with Richter’s epistemological view that perception is a constructed experience. For Richter, paintings and photographs do not present an objective slice of reality; rather, they appear as traces of the relationship between the observer and what is observed. Therefore, the notion of a singular, objective “true image” collapses under the weight of perceptual ambiguity and subjectivity. Richter deliberately distances himself from scientific or rationalist models that treat reality as a replicable object, instead embracing a worldview grounded in the fluid and uncertain nature of human perception.

Having spent his early years under the Nazi regime, then living amid the ideological strictures of Socialist Realism in East Germany before fleeing to the West, Richter carries within him a layered historical background. His body of work consistently explores the complex relationship between trauma, memory, and image. To him, a photograph is not a neutral record, but a “reconstructed trace” shaped by emotional and mnemonic filters—never a vessel of absolute truth. Notably, his use of blur as a technique symbolizes the vagueness of memory, the force of repression, and the fragmentation of consciousness. His paintings thus emerge as “inner landscapes” formed in the tension between forgetting and remembering. They are not representations of external reality, but rather visualizations of the shifting terrain of perception and recollection. Through painting, Richter attempts to make visible the continuous reconstruction of understanding that takes place in the depths of the human mind.

Although Richter is not a religious painter, his artistic approach reflects a deep spiritual dimension that aligns with the Buddhist notion of śūnyatā (emptiness) and with Christian iconoclasm. In Buddhist thought, emptiness refers to the idea that all phenomena lack inherent substance and exist only through interdependent relations. From this perspective, images are not fixed realities, but temporary appearances that arise from conditions—they are impermanent and devoid of eternal meaning. Similarly, Richter’s works, especially those dealing with unrepresentable subjects such as the Auschwitz Photographs, embody a poetics of silence in which the image is not clearly shown but instead deliberately withheld. This restraint invites reflection on the ethics of seeing and challenges uncritical belief in the authority of images. In this way, Richter’s art quietly breathes with a spiritual depth that questions both visual dominance and our own desire to believe in what we see.

Gerhard Richter commands immense recognition in the contemporary art market, with his works often fetching tens of millions of dollars. Yet, beyond such market value lies his deeper essence: not merely as a painter, but as a thinker who persistently challenges the boundaries of photography, architecture, and spatial perception.

While his work resonates with movements such as Pop Art and Minimalism, it is distinguished by a uniquely German intellectual depth—an ongoing “cool experiment” marked by restraint and rigor.

His oeuvre embodies a remarkable balance of diversity and experimentation, tranquility and intellect. Despite the varying techniques he employs, Richter remains steadfast in his pursuit of a single, fundamental inquiry: What is an image? And what is it that we truly see?

References (Scholarly Works, Criticism, and Catalogues)

Gerhard Richter: Panorama (Mark Godfrey et al. / Tate)
A comprehensive retrospective catalogue covering Richter’s major works, ideas, and techniques.
Gerhard Richter: Text – Writings, Interviews and Letters 1961–2007 (Edited by Hans-Ulrich Obrist)
A valuable primary source collection of Richter’s own thoughts, diaries, and interviews.
Gerhard Richter: Doubt and Belief in Painting (Robert Storr)
An insightful analysis by a MoMA curator, examining the tension between faith and doubt in Richter’s approach to painting.
The Daily Practice of Painting (Gerhard Richter)
A compilation of Richter’s own fragmentary writings on art—reflective and deeply introspective.
Art Since 1900 (Hal Foster et al.)
Places Richter within the context of 20th-century art history, particularly in relation to postmodernism.
Gerhard Richter: Glass and Mirror Works (Armin Zweite)
A focused study on Richter’s exploration of light and space through glass and mirror installations, including the Teshima work.

Notable Works and Genre Classification

Photo Painting (Realism and Blur)

Betty (1988)
A rear-view portrait of Richter’s daughter, combining photorealism with emotional distance.
Ella (2007)
A portrait of his granddaughter, expressing memory and presence through poetic realism.
Uncle Rudi (1965)
Depicts his uncle in a Nazi uniform, using blur to confront the ambiguity of history and memory.

Abstract Painting

Abstract Painting 599 (1986)
A layered composition using a squeegee to balance chance and control.
Abstraktes Bild series (1980s–)
A visual field of color and materiality—an energetic space of abstraction.

Color Charts

4900 Farben (2007)
A massive installation of color chips arranged randomly or systematically—melding mathematics with chance.
1024 Farben (1973)
A study in pure perception, removing emotion and narrative from color.

Glass and Mirror Works (Space and Perception)

14 Glass Panels / Teshima (c. 2010)
An environmental installation in resonance with nature—deconstructing light and gaze.
8 Panes (2012)
Explores reflection and transparency through layered glass structures.
Mirror Painting series (1980s–)
Uses mirrored surfaces to destabilize the viewer’s act of looking.

History, Memory, and Ethics

October 18, 1977 series (1988)
Depicts the deaths of members of the Red Army Faction (RAF) using photographic blur to address representational limits and ethical tensions.
Birkenau series (2014)
Abstract reinterpretations of Auschwitz photographs—a response to the violence inherent in the act of viewing.