Cage: 6 Paintings by Gerhard Richter

by Robert Storr

German artist Gerhard Richter (b. 1932) is widely regarded as one of the most important painters at work today. His diverse body of work has been exhibited at major institutions worldwide and in 2001, he was given a solo retrospective at The Museum of Modern Art in New York. The Cage Paintings, conceived as a single coherent group and first displayed at the Venice Biennale in 2007, pay homage to the American avant-garde composer John Cage (1912-1992), who famously declared “I have nothing to say and I’m saying it.” Richter, equally suspicious of ideologies, shies away from giving psychological interpretations of his paintings, preferring to allow viewers and critics to make up their own minds.


In this strikingly illustrated volume, critic Robert Storr considers the importance of The Cage Paintings within Richter’s practice and within the wider context of abstract art. A series of extraordinary photographs document the development of each of these monumental canvases, giving unique insight into Richter’s artistic approach.

160 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2009

About the author

Robert Storr is an American curator, critic, painter, and writer.

Reviews

[tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

I gave this review five stars because of its absolutely incredible, insightful and necessary second half, which shows each of the six Cage paintings at different steps of its development. For anyone interested or knowledgeable in Richter's unique and ground-breaking technique for his "Abstract Pictures," this is an obviously useful resource. But I do want to stress that Robert Storr's essay that comprises the first half of this book is typical of Storr's writing on Richter. Storr is a good story-teller (as evidenced by his insightful and carefully-constructed writing on Richter's "October 18, 1977"). But, when confronted with something essentially content-less, or at least non-representational, as are most of Richter's abstracts, Storr seems to be grasping at straws; he seems lost for what to say, and ends up saying nothing really useful or insightful. He seems uncomfortable talking about Richter's abstracts on their own terms, as do most critics of Richter. Also, to any musician knowledgeable with John Cage, much of what Storr says about Cage and music in general is either flat out wrong or deeply misunderstood. The first few pages of the third essay, which simply talks about the physical material with which painters paint, as well as Richter's actual physical process of making these large abstracts, are useful and insightful. But all and all, the essay is as infuriating as any of Storr's essays typically are. But, just to end on a good note, like I said, the second half of the book is well worth the price.