Gerhard Richter at the Serpentine Gallery, September – November 2008

Gerhard Richter

4, 16, 64, 256, 1024 Farben (4, 16, 64, 256, 1024 Colours) 1974 – Lacquer on canvas

© 2008 Gerhard Richter

Gerhard Richter

4900 Farben (4900 Colours) 2007 – Enamel paint on Aludibond – 680 x 680 cm – La Collection de la Fondation Louis Vuitton pour la Création

© 2008 Gerhard Richter

Gerhard Richter

1024 Farben (1024 Colours) 1973 – Lacquer on canvas – 299 x 299 cm

© 2008 Gerhard Richter

Gerhard Richter at the Serpentine Gallery

4900 Colours: Version II: Major new work by Gerhard Richter at the Serpentine Gallery, September – November 2008

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Gerhard Richter is one of the world’s greatest living artists. Since the early 1960s, he has tirelessly explored the medium of painting at a time when many were heralding its death. He has produced a remarkably varied body of work, including photography-based portrait, landscape and still-life paintings; gestural and monochrome abstraction; and colour chart grid paintings

The Serpentine Gallery presents “4900 Colours”, a major new work comprising bright monochrome squares randomly arranged in a grid formation to create stunning sheets of kaleidoscopic colour. The 196 square panels of 25 coloured squares can be re-configured in a number of variations, from one large-scale piece to multiple, smaller paintings. Richter has developed a version comprised of 49 paintings, especially for the Serpentine Gallery

“4900 Colours” is parallel to Richter’s design for the south transept window of Cologne Cathedral, which replaced the stained glass that was destroyed in World War II

Richter produced the first in his series of grid paintings in 1966 in which he replicated, in large scale, industrial colour charts produced by paint manufacturers. as whith his photo-paintings, the use of found material as a source removed the subjective compositional preferences of the artist, however, the “Colour Chart Paintings” took this a step further, eradicating any hierarchy of subject or representional intent, and focusing on colour to create an egalitarian language of Art

The Serpentine Gallery exhibition precedes two other major representations of the artist’s work in the UK in 2008 and 2009, at the National Gallery Complex, Edinburgh from 8 November 2008 and at the National Portrait Gallery, London from 26 February 2009