"One has to believe in what one is doing, one has to commit oneself inwardly, in order to do painting. Once obsessed, one ultimately carries it to the point of believing that one might change human beings through painting. But if one lacks passionate commitment, there is nothing left to do. Then it is best to leave it alone. For basically painting is total idiocy."
- Gerhard Richter, Notes, 1973
I remember the first time I saw a Richter painting, and as a young art student, I was rather astonished. I bought a postcard of the painting and had it tacked to my wall for quite a long time. The quality of light and space, skin and paper, in Lesende (Reader), did something to me. And, to this day, I can't quite name it. I saw it in a group show of German painters at the Hayward Gallery in London in 1994, the same year Richter made the painting. Tonight I saw the new documentary film, Gerhard Richter Painting, and it did something to me too. And, as I sit here and try to write a sentence about what it did to me, I realize that it may be as unnameable as the experience of making a painting. Or, at least, it seems best tonight to listen to Richter and leave it that way.
"Talk about painting: there's no point. By conveying a thing through the medium of language, you change it. You construct qualities that can be said, and you leave out the ones that can't be said but are always the most important."
- Gerhard Richter, Notes, 1964-65
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