Gerhard Richter: “Lines which do not exist”

Gerhard Richter:
“Lines which do not exist”
September 11 – November 18, 2010

Opening:
Friday, September 10, 6:00–8:00pm

35 Wooster Street
(between Grand and Broome)
New York City

www.drawingcenter.org

The Drawing Center announces Gerhard Richter: “Lines which do not exist”, a new iteration of an exhibition first presented at mima, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, UK, in 2009. This presentation features a selection of 50 abstract graphite, watercolor, and ink on paper drawings made from 1966 to 2005. While Richter’s painting has enjoyed critical acclaim throughout the world, his drawing practice remains more opaque and enigmatic. This exhibition will bring together Richter’s works on paper for the first time in the United States to explore his complex relationship to drawing by highlighting the asymptotic path between drawing and his work in other mediums, and charting his independent and often inconclusive investigations into representation and perception. The installation will consist of constellations of drawings arranged on shelves irrespective of chronology or technique, material, or scale. Suggesting something more open, adjustable, or even unstable, the exhibition design will allow previously unexplored connections to emerge between Richter’s landscape, mechanical, schematic, abstract, and autographic drawings.

Curated by Gavin Delahunty, Curator, mima, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, UK.

ABOUT THE ARTIST
Gerhard Richter was born in 1932 in Dresden, Germany. Between 1952 and 1957, he studied art at the Kunstakademie, Dresden. Richter then moved to Düsseldorf, where he worked as a photo-laboratory technician before enrolling at the Staatliche Kunstakademie Düsseldorf under Karl Otto Götz from 1961 to 1964. He introduced his hybrid photo-painting style in his first exhibition in Düsseldorf in 1963 when he used his own photographs of landscapes, portraits, and still-lifes as source material and then deliberately “blurred” the depicted subjects or objects in the painting to differentiate the generative source material from the act of paining. Richter’s work has been the subject of numerous exhibitions including: the Venice Biennale (1972), Documenta, Kassel (1972, 1977, 1982, 1987, 1992, 1997), Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco (1989), Tate Gallery in London (1991), Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid (1994), Astrup Fearnley Museet for Moderne Kunst in Oslo (1999), Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin (2002), Museum of Modern Art in New York (2002), Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. (2003), Kunst Museum Bonn (2004), National Museum of China in Beijing (2008), and National Portrait Gallery in London (2009). He has received numerous prizes including the Oskar Kokoschka Prize in Vienna (1985), Wolf Prize from the Wolf Foundation in Israel (1994), and Praemium Imperiale in Japan (1997). Richter currently lives and works in Cologne.

PUBLIC PROGRAMS
Saturday, September 11, 3:00pm
Walk-through with exhibition curator Gavin Delahunty

Saturday, October 16, 2:00pm
Walk-through with Executive Director Brett Littman

PUBLICATION
The Drawing Center has produced a 120-page publication, featuring new scholarship on Richter’s drawing practice by Gavin Delahunty, and a foreword by Brett Littman, Executive Director of The Drawing Center, and Kate Brindley, Director of mima, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art. The publication includes approximately 50 color reproductions of works from the exhibition.

HOURS & ACCESSIBILITY
Gallery hours are Wednesday, 12pm–6pm, Thursday, 12pm–8pm, and Friday–Sunday, 12pm–6pm (closed Mondays and Tuesdays). The Drawing Center is wheelchair accessible.

CREDITS
Gerhard Richter: “Lines which do not exist” is made possible in part by the Frances R. Dittmer Family Foundation. Additional support for the accompanying catalogue has been provided by Dr. Benny Levenson and Prof. Henning Lohner.

MISSION STATEMENT
The Drawing Center is the only not-for-profit fine arts institution in the country to focus solely on the exhibition of drawings, both historical and contemporary. It was established in 1977 to provide opportunities for emerging and under-recognized artists; to demonstrate the significance and diversity of drawings throughout history; and to stimulate public dialogue on issues of art and culture.
35 Wooster Street (between Grand and Broome), NYC | 212-219-2166 | www.drawingcenter.org