Gerhard Richter

One can see, or rather hear, a great example in John Cage’s work of how extensively, cleverly, and sensitively he treats coincidence in order to make music out of it. 
—Gerhard Richter

Gagosian is pleased to present Gerhard Richter’s Cage paintings, which were shown at Gagosian Beverly Hills in an exhibition that opened in December 2020. The series was a highlight of the artist’s recent retrospective, Gerhard Richter: Painting After All, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Throughout his career, Richter has navigated between naturalism and abstraction, painting and photography, exploring the conceptual, historical, and material implications of various mediums without ideological restraint. In paintings he produced while studying at the Staatliche Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, Germany, in the early 1960s, his imagery derived from magazine and newspaper photographs; he has continued this exploration throughout his career, manipulating it in ways that have inspired subsequent generations of painters. Richter approaches the concept of abstraction with similar rigor, employing varying combinations of process, expressiveness, and chance. The resultant works range from austere monochromes and mirrors to dynamic, layered, and richly chromatic compositions.