David Zwirner is pleased to present the gallery’s first exhibition of works by Gerhard Richter (b. 1932) since the announcement of his representation in December 2022. Held at the gallery’s location at 537 West 20th Street in New York, the exhibition will feature new and recent abstract works by Richter, all created between 2016 and 2022. This will be the first exhibition devoted to the artist’s work in New York since his retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which was only briefly on view in March 2020.
The exhibition will present a significant group of Richter’s “last paintings,” made in 2016–2017; a number of these abstract oil paintings will be shown here for the first time. Also featured will be a new glass installation that continues Richter’s exploration of human perception and the built environment. An expansive suite of new works on paper from 2021–2022—some made with ink and others with graphite and colored pencil—will also be on view, as well as works related to the artist’s mood series of colored ink sketches that were exhibited at the Fondation Beyeler in Basel in 2022.
Celebrated worldwide as one of the most important artists of his generation, with a career spanning from the 1960s to the present, Richter has pursued a diverse and influential practice characterized by a decades-long commitment to painting and its formal and conceptual possibilities. The artist has consistently probed the relationship between painting and photography, engaging a variety of styles and innovative techniques in a complex repositioning of genres. In Richter’s work, dual modes of representation and abstraction fundamentally question the way in which we relate to images.
On the occasion of his exhibition at David Zwirner, Richter will publish a new, limited-run artist’s book titled 100 Abstract Pictures. This presentation will additionally be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue published by David Zwirner Books with a newly commissioned essay by Dieter Schwarz. One of the foremost experts on Richter’s work, Schwarz is an art historian, writer, curator, and former director of the Kunstmuseum Winterthur, Switzerland.
Concurrently on view at the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin will be Gerhard Richter: 100 Works for Berlin. Opening in April 2023, this special long-term presentation will feature works that the Gerhard Richter Foundation gave to the museum on permanent loan in 2021, including his Birkenau (2014) series of large-scale abstract paintings.
Gerhard Richter (b. 1932) was born in Dresden, Germany. He studied art at the Dresden Hochschule für Bildende Künste from 1951 to 1956, with mural painting as his concentration. In 1959, he visited documenta II, held in Kassel, Germany, an experience that inspired him to alter his artistic trajectory. After his escape from East Germany in 1961, he completed a second course of study at the Staatliche Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf. There, he united with his fellow students Sigmar Polke, Konrad Lueg, and Manfred Kuttner to collectively form the short-lived “Capitalist Realism” group.
From 1964 onward, Richter had many solo exhibitions in renowned commercial galleries in Europe, among them the Galerie Schmela in Düsseldorf (1964); Galerie Friedrich & Dahlem, Munich (1964, 1966); City-Galerie Bruno Bischofberger, Zurich (1966); Galleria La Tartaruga, Rome (1966); Wide White Space, Antwerp (1967); Galerie Heiner Friedrich, Munich (1967); Galerie Rudolf Zwirner, Cologne (1968); and Galleria del Naviglio, Milan (1969).
David Zwirner organized an exhibition of Richter’s prints and multiples in New York in 1994, in the gallery’s first twelve months of programming. Richter’s work was also the subject of exhibitions at the gallery in 2000 (Gerhard Richter: Early Paintings) and in 2004 (Gerhard Richter: Landscapes).
Work by Gerhard Richter is held in important public and private collections worldwide. He lives and works in Cologne.
Works by Gerhard Richter will be on view from March 16 to April 22, 2023 at David Zwirner, 537 West 20th Street, NYC. An Opening Reception will be held on Thursday, March 16th from 6-8pm.
Pre-orders for Gerhard Richter: 100 Abstract Pictures are available.