Gerhard Richter has been painting for 50 years. As a painter myself, I know this alone is a cause for celebration. I greatly appreciate that writers Floriana Piqué and Anna Leung were willing to address Panorama the complex exhibition of Richter’s work that opened at the Tate Modern in London (October 6 – January 8, 2012) and will reopen at the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin (February 12 -- May 13, 2012), then travel on to the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (June 6 -- September 24, 2012). The artist will celebrate his eightieth birthday on February 9, 2012. There is also a new documentary film by Corinna Belz, Gerhard Richter Painting, which opens a window into this artist’s process as we watch him painting his large abstractions with the squeegee that he slowly pulls across his canvases. You may see an excerpt from the film showing the artist at work in the video window above. 

I also want to thank Robert Stalker for writing about the five Richters that the High Museum of Art here in Atlanta owns. Robert, as always, gives us a reading that is not like any other I could have imagined. Just when I thought we all have had our say about Richter, these writers, the film, and most of all Richter’s work itself reinforms us about painting. And painting surprises us yet again by being the language that communicates more than we know about. 

“But what does the artist himself think of the film? ‘It's good, because it's so boring!’ says Richter, smiling. ‘It is so quiet and unassuming. It's similar to an exhibition - you want to show what it is that you do.’" (Sabine Oelze, Deutsche Welle)

I hope you enjoy contemplating painting and Richter as much as I have. For more information on the artist, please visit his website.