GERHARD RICHTER STRIKES
Otherworldly Overpainting Photographs
There’s always been something otherworldly about the way Gerhard Richter pulls beauty into the world. Over the course of a multi-decade career uplifted by international renown, he consistently finds fresh ways to manipulate media into something no other mind could imagine. He creates entire worlds within his work, steering from abstract paintings to photorealistic pieces, from pure photography to mixed media with a nuance that is uniquely his own.
In his latest show, Overpainted Photographs, currently open at LUMA Arles in France, he elevates a series of provocative photographic works with a heavy impasto of dragged paint. The pieces are intimate in size, small enough to invite the viewer to step closer, and closer still, to take in the subtle details of how thick washes of color work over and around the subjects of the photographs. The abstract paint and the absolute reality of the photographs come together in a way that reminds of how some of the most charged relationships work because opposing forces attract.
The intimacy of each piece developed from Richter mining his own photography archives when preparing pieces for this show. Family portraits, holiday views, cityscapes – his personal life is put on public display, and yet lovingly concealed by long, slow pulls of pigment.
“Once overpainted, [the memories] are displaced from the realm of personal record,” stated LUMA Arles in the show statement. “The paint neither fully erases nor simply covers the image beneath. Instead, it redirects vision, creating a unique relation between what can still be seen and what has been withheld. The image becomes unstable, open, and unresolved.”
Everything about this show has us rapt – even the show’s location is in itself an enticing masterpiece which will transport you to an as-yet-indescribable time and place.
Formerly a Roman necropolis, LUMA Arles is nestled about 60 kilometers northwest of Marseille, France, and the site has experienced a rebirth as a cultural mecca for art lovers. The Parc des Ateliers, which houses the LUMA Arles, consists of a nine-building campus and a surrounding park, the main tower of which looks lifted directly from the mind of a futuristic architect who had a love affair with Gaudi.
Overpainted Photographs is on view through January 10, 2027 on the second level of the LUMA Arles campus’s main tower. We can’t urge you strongly enough to make the trip to this show, to this location. You’ll feel something you’ll only get one chance to feel in this lifetime.