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拍品專文
‘Grey is a colour—and sometimes, to me, the most important of all’ (Gerhard Richter)
Painted in 1974, Grau (Grey) is a monumental work from Gerhard Richter’s important series of Grey Paintings. Towering two and a half metres in height, its monochrome surface shifts and shimmers before the viewer, modulated by subtle variations of texture. Begun during the late 1960s, and pursued until 1976, Richter’s Grey Paintings occupied pivotal territory in the transition from his greyscale photorealist paintings to his first gestural abstracts. Together with his Colour Charts and Red-Blue-Yellow series, they represent the artist’s attempt to distil visual representation to its most essential components. Richter believed that all painting, whether figurative or abstract, was a lie posing as the truth. By stripping the picture plane of content, he sought to expose this fact: the present work’s grey expanse refers to nothing but itself, yet its surface—like a smoke screen—seems to suggest subtle illusory depths. The work was part of the landmark group of thirty-one Grey Paintings shown at the Städtisches Museum, Mönchengladbach in 1974, and was acquired by the Crex Collection four years later. It has since been widely exhibited, and was on long term loan to the Kunstmuseum Winterthur between 1998 and 2003.
For Richter, the indeterminate qualities of grey played directly into his fascination with the instability of all picture-making. The colour ‘evokes neither feelings nor associations’, he explained; ‘it is really neither visible nor invisible. Its inconspicuousness gives it the capacity to mediate, to make visible, in a positively illusionistic way, like a photograph. It has the capacity that no other colour has, to make “nothing” visible’ (G. Richter, quoted in ‘Letter to Edy de Wilde, 23 February 1975’, in H-U. Obrist (ed.), Gerhard Richter: The Daily Practice of Painting, London 1995, pp. 82-83). By choosing a hue seemingly divorced from all external phenomena, Richter sought to demonstrate how even the most basic artistic act harbours the potential for deception. In certain lights, the work’s surface appears to ripple like water or clouds, only to deflect our gaze when we attempt to dig deeper. Like the blurred surfaces of his photo-paintings, or indeed the complex depths of his later abstracts, all sense of meaning and order remains tantalisingly beyond reach.
The Grey Paintings followed a renewed interest in monochrome painting within the wider art world—from Yves Klein’s distinctive blue canvases, to the elemental creations of Minimalism and the ‘black paintings’ of Robert Rauschenberg. While many of these artists used it as a vehicle for highlighting art’s objective nature, Richter used his monochromes to make important observations about human subjectivity. By deconstructing the painterly surface, he revealed it anew as a site of flawed beauty—a space where fantasies materialised as quickly as they faded away. For Richter, a photograph could never be any more ‘truthful’ than a mass of abstract brushstrokes; each was a collusion of visual elements onto which we, as viewers, were invited to project meaning. In the Grey Paintings, Richter offered an elegant illustration of this fact: only when the picture plane contains nothing do we realise our propensity to fill it with ‘something’. ‘Picturing things, taking a view, is what makes us human’, said Richter; ‘art is making sense and giving shape to that sense’ (G. Richter, ‘Notes 1962’, reproduced in Gerhard Richter: Texts, Writings, Interviews and Letters 1961-2007, London 2009, p. 14). It was a vital revelation in a world that had lost faith in painting, and would come to guide the evolution of Richter’s practice over the ensuing decades.
Works from the Crex Art Collection
Christie’s is delighted to present an outstanding group of seven works from the prestigious Crex Art Collection. Spread across the 20th/21st Century London Evening Sale and the Post-War & Contemporary Art Day Sale this October, these works capture the pioneering spirit of one of Europe’s finest collections of Minimalist and Conceptual art.
Begun in Zurich in the early 1970s, the Crex Collection was distinguished by its revolutionary focus on the art of its day. In 1978, it showcased its holdings in a major touring exhibition that travelled to institutions including the Louisiana Museum, Humlebaek and the Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven. Already the collection included works by artists including Robert Mangold, Sol LeWitt, Blinky Palermo and Donald Judd, as well as Gerhard Richter, Sigmar Polke and Neo-Expressionist painters such as Georg Baselitz and Markus Lüpertz. Writing in the catalogue, Rudi Fuchs wrote that ‘It was not primarily the desire to own art, it seems, which prompted this collection; there was also the profound wish to support art, contemporary art, in a country with many collections of classic art but with only little activity in the field of really contemporary art’ (R. Fuchs, quoted in Werke aus der Sammlung Crex, Zurich 1978, p. 129).
During the early 1980s, the collection took up residence in the Hallen für neue Kunst in Schaffhausen: a former textile factory. It was one of the first exhibition spaces to make use of an industrial building in this way, and mounted a series of major shows until 2014. Its celebration of both European and American artists, and its dedication to their public display, transformed the landscape for contemporary art in Switzerland and beyond.
All acquired shortly after their creation, the present selection of works demonstrates the sharp connoisseurly vision of the Crex Collection. Highlights include a rare and unique example of Blinky Palermo’s Stoffbilder (Fabric Pictures), distinguished by its vertical rather than horizontal seam. Gerhard Richter’s Grau is one of the landmark group of Grey Paintings that the artist unveiled at the Städtisches Museum, Mönchengladbach in 1974. Brown Wall (1964) is one of the very first works in Robert Mangold’s seminal Walls series, while his Four Color Frame Painting #16 (1985) featured on the cover of The Paris Review in 1989. Completing the selection are works by Markus Lüpertz, Sol LeWitt and Richard Long, rounding out a tightly-curated snapshot of one of the twentieth century’s richest art-historical periods.
Painted in 1974, Grau (Grey) is a monumental work from Gerhard Richter’s important series of Grey Paintings. Towering two and a half metres in height, its monochrome surface shifts and shimmers before the viewer, modulated by subtle variations of texture. Begun during the late 1960s, and pursued until 1976, Richter’s Grey Paintings occupied pivotal territory in the transition from his greyscale photorealist paintings to his first gestural abstracts. Together with his Colour Charts and Red-Blue-Yellow series, they represent the artist’s attempt to distil visual representation to its most essential components. Richter believed that all painting, whether figurative or abstract, was a lie posing as the truth. By stripping the picture plane of content, he sought to expose this fact: the present work’s grey expanse refers to nothing but itself, yet its surface—like a smoke screen—seems to suggest subtle illusory depths. The work was part of the landmark group of thirty-one Grey Paintings shown at the Städtisches Museum, Mönchengladbach in 1974, and was acquired by the Crex Collection four years later. It has since been widely exhibited, and was on long term loan to the Kunstmuseum Winterthur between 1998 and 2003.
For Richter, the indeterminate qualities of grey played directly into his fascination with the instability of all picture-making. The colour ‘evokes neither feelings nor associations’, he explained; ‘it is really neither visible nor invisible. Its inconspicuousness gives it the capacity to mediate, to make visible, in a positively illusionistic way, like a photograph. It has the capacity that no other colour has, to make “nothing” visible’ (G. Richter, quoted in ‘Letter to Edy de Wilde, 23 February 1975’, in H-U. Obrist (ed.), Gerhard Richter: The Daily Practice of Painting, London 1995, pp. 82-83). By choosing a hue seemingly divorced from all external phenomena, Richter sought to demonstrate how even the most basic artistic act harbours the potential for deception. In certain lights, the work’s surface appears to ripple like water or clouds, only to deflect our gaze when we attempt to dig deeper. Like the blurred surfaces of his photo-paintings, or indeed the complex depths of his later abstracts, all sense of meaning and order remains tantalisingly beyond reach.
The Grey Paintings followed a renewed interest in monochrome painting within the wider art world—from Yves Klein’s distinctive blue canvases, to the elemental creations of Minimalism and the ‘black paintings’ of Robert Rauschenberg. While many of these artists used it as a vehicle for highlighting art’s objective nature, Richter used his monochromes to make important observations about human subjectivity. By deconstructing the painterly surface, he revealed it anew as a site of flawed beauty—a space where fantasies materialised as quickly as they faded away. For Richter, a photograph could never be any more ‘truthful’ than a mass of abstract brushstrokes; each was a collusion of visual elements onto which we, as viewers, were invited to project meaning. In the Grey Paintings, Richter offered an elegant illustration of this fact: only when the picture plane contains nothing do we realise our propensity to fill it with ‘something’. ‘Picturing things, taking a view, is what makes us human’, said Richter; ‘art is making sense and giving shape to that sense’ (G. Richter, ‘Notes 1962’, reproduced in Gerhard Richter: Texts, Writings, Interviews and Letters 1961-2007, London 2009, p. 14). It was a vital revelation in a world that had lost faith in painting, and would come to guide the evolution of Richter’s practice over the ensuing decades.
Works from the Crex Art Collection
Christie’s is delighted to present an outstanding group of seven works from the prestigious Crex Art Collection. Spread across the 20th/21st Century London Evening Sale and the Post-War & Contemporary Art Day Sale this October, these works capture the pioneering spirit of one of Europe’s finest collections of Minimalist and Conceptual art.
Begun in Zurich in the early 1970s, the Crex Collection was distinguished by its revolutionary focus on the art of its day. In 1978, it showcased its holdings in a major touring exhibition that travelled to institutions including the Louisiana Museum, Humlebaek and the Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven. Already the collection included works by artists including Robert Mangold, Sol LeWitt, Blinky Palermo and Donald Judd, as well as Gerhard Richter, Sigmar Polke and Neo-Expressionist painters such as Georg Baselitz and Markus Lüpertz. Writing in the catalogue, Rudi Fuchs wrote that ‘It was not primarily the desire to own art, it seems, which prompted this collection; there was also the profound wish to support art, contemporary art, in a country with many collections of classic art but with only little activity in the field of really contemporary art’ (R. Fuchs, quoted in Werke aus der Sammlung Crex, Zurich 1978, p. 129).
During the early 1980s, the collection took up residence in the Hallen für neue Kunst in Schaffhausen: a former textile factory. It was one of the first exhibition spaces to make use of an industrial building in this way, and mounted a series of major shows until 2014. Its celebration of both European and American artists, and its dedication to their public display, transformed the landscape for contemporary art in Switzerland and beyond.
All acquired shortly after their creation, the present selection of works demonstrates the sharp connoisseurly vision of the Crex Collection. Highlights include a rare and unique example of Blinky Palermo’s Stoffbilder (Fabric Pictures), distinguished by its vertical rather than horizontal seam. Gerhard Richter’s Grau is one of the landmark group of Grey Paintings that the artist unveiled at the Städtisches Museum, Mönchengladbach in 1974. Brown Wall (1964) is one of the very first works in Robert Mangold’s seminal Walls series, while his Four Color Frame Painting #16 (1985) featured on the cover of The Paris Review in 1989. Completing the selection are works by Markus Lüpertz, Sol LeWitt and Richard Long, rounding out a tightly-curated snapshot of one of the twentieth century’s richest art-historical periods.