Gerhard Richter – Modern Times

Last month I went to see the Gerhard Richter retrospective at MIMA in Middlesborough. Richter is my favourite artist, the benchmark I judge other contemporary artists by, and Middlesborough is only an hour on the train from me.

There were four rooms housing his work. The first room contains Richter’s Corner Paintings. There’s something quite disconcerting about the focus of the room being in the corners. It cuts the viewer off rom the rest of the room, shrinking the viewing space down.

Gerhard Richter – Eckspiegel, Braun-Blau (Corner Mirror, Brown-Blue) 1991

The second room is composed solely of Two Sculptures for a Room by Palermo which is two sculptures of Richter and Blinky Palmero by the artists themselves. The sculptures are situated on plinths and are facing each other so seem to be ’staring’ at each other. The locked gaze creates tension between the two objects.

Gerhard Richter – Zwei Skulpturen für einem Raum von Palermo (Two Sculptures For A Room By Palermo) 1971

Room three shows several of Richter’s Abstract Paintings which he’s probably best known for (along with his Photo Paintings). These were the first Richter works I ever saw and it’s always pleasant to revisit them. It’s easy to forget the subtlety happening on a large-scale while looking at reproductions of his work. They still have the same impact on me that they did when I was a student.

Gerhard Richter – Abstraktes Bild (Abstract Painting) 1994

The final room contains a selection of Richter’s drawings. The fluency of line he employs is truly spectacular. It also houses some of Richter’s painting of Gilbert & George.

Gerhard Richter – Gilbert, 1975

Gerhard Richter – George, 1975

It goes without saying that I loved this exhibition – it’s a good overview of his work (it’s by no means even close to exhaustive but it would take a much bigger gallery than MIMA to achieve this).  I’d love to see what a bigger gallery, say the BALTIC in Gateshead, could do with his work.

I’m back. Here’s an experiment.

Nine Prints #1-9

Rachel Goodyear and Aprile Elcich

Upon learning that there’s a new exhibition locally by Rachel Goodyear, one of my favourite contemporary artists I decided that I’d feature some of her work on here. Then I got thinking about how she reminds me of another artist whose work I like, Aprile Elcich, even though their work seems to have no apparent connection.

Rachel Goodyear draws. Her work is on small sheets of paper, mainly pencil and watercolours. Generally consisting of a small sketch in one or two colours, they are much more powerful than they should, subtle yet striking. Her drawings of birds make me think of Roni Horn’s Birds series

Rachel Goodyear – U-Bend, 2008

Rachel Goodyear – Two Magpies, 2007

On the other hand Aprile Elcich creates artists books and works in postcard size with found images, stencils and drawing to create a language of her own. Her work is loose, fresh and to the point. Slogans and statements often cover the images she’s torn up, all done sensitively. There’s clearly a small debt to John Stezaker but the work she’s making is completely her own.

Aprile Elciche – End

Aprile Elcich – Mr Chameleon

Two artists who have no connection but are creating original, unique work that really connects with me, the small scale of their work makes it all the more powerful. Aprile’s wonderful blog about collage artists, Not Paper, is certainly worth checking out, it has featured some fantastic artists.

‘they never run, only call’ by Rachel Goodyear is at the International 3, Fairfield Street, Manchester from 24th January until 7th March 2009.