The strength and pleasure of Gerhard Richter’s work lies in its boundlessness, its variety, its sneakiness, its reliance on inner compulsion and intelligence. Contradictory, antithetical, incompatible: Richter swerves from one way of working to another, in an exhibition that fills two floors of David Zwirner in London. This could almost be a group show rather than work made by a single artist. Richter won’t be pinned down, and he still wants to surprise himself, even as he approaches his 92nd birthday next month.
As is his custom, Richter built a scale model of the gallery in his studio and planned the show to the last detail. The earliest work here was made in 2010, the latest in August last year. Richter is directing us, first one way, then another. Heavily worked and scraped-down abstraction gives way to a highly reflective glass surface that mirrors the room. But behind the glass is a reproduction of one of Richter’s skull paintings, the skull facing to the side and getting caught up with one’s own reflection, along with the other works behind our backs. Another small mirrored exterior reveals impenetrable grey beneath a surface marked with a faint horizontal and vertical line, while upstairs a larger, polished mirror opens up a virtual space beyond our reflections. Here I am, but where am I?
