In the spring of 2017, Gerhard Richter celebrated his 85th birthday. To mark this occasion, the entirety of Richter’s editioned work created since 1965 will be on view at the Museum Folkwang from April 7 until July 30, 2017. The exhibition Gerhard Richter. The Editions is the most comprehensive that the editions, currently numbering more than 170, have been given to date, and brings the artist’s most famous motifs together with many of his works that are rarely shown.

Gerhard Richter’s editioned works—prints, photographs, objects, and paintings—form an important group within the artist’s complex oeuvre. At the same time, they offer an overview of his more than five decades of extensive artistic work. Richter has used the concept of editioning since the early years of his artistic career to interpret his works and ideas anew and simultaneously to extend their reach through wider dissemination.

Richter’s earliest editions already show a new formulation of the same questions that occupy him in painting: questions about the meaning of original and copy, about the idiosyncrasies of photography, painting, and printing, and about the interpretation of his chosen subjects. As his painting has changed and evolved, his editions also reflect new subjects, concepts, and artistic strategies. In addition to found family portraits and photographs from newspapers and magazines—for example, Flugzeug II (Airplane II), 1966—he increasingly uses his own snapshots as the starting point for new artwork. Thus, for the edition Ella (2014), he returned to a photograph of his own daughter taken in 2006. Abstraction also plays a central role in the editions. Not only does Richter use abstract paintings as templates for photographs, excerpts from which he combines to make new works; he also creates editions with unique characteristics, as in Fuji, a series of 110 abstract paintings, of which the exhibition will feature two selections.

The exhibition is a collaboration with the Olbricht Collection.

Supported by Merck Finck Privatbankiers.

Press conference
Wednesday, April 5, 11am

Press contact
Anna Littmann: T +49 201 8845 160 / anna.littmann@museum-folkwang.essen.de

Public program
The exhibition will be accompanied by a range of public and educational programs. For the dates, please visit www.museum-folkwang.de or subscribe to our newsletter by clicking here.

Lecture
Thursday, June 22, 7pm, CONCEPTION – PRODUCTION – EDITION. with Mike Karstens, Print workshop, Münster

Gerhard Richter. The Editions
April 7–July 30, 2017

Opening: April 6, 7–10pm

Museum Folkwang
Museumsplatz 1
45128 Essen
Germany

Image: Kerze I, 1988. Candle I. Offset print and chalk on paper, 89,3 x 94,5 cm. Courtesy Olbricht Collection© Gerhard Richter, 2017