Gerhard Richter 'Panorama' exhibition

I thoroughly enjoyed this exhibition at the Tate. I had been meaning to go but the fact that it finishes on January 8th encouraged me to go and join the German crowds. I had looked at Richter's work before when I was looking at visual impairments and ways of distorting or obscuring images. I found his method of blurring paint very interesting and I looked at his painted photographs as a way of obscuring my paintings for my FMP. He is an interesting painter because he considers both the capacities of painting as well as it's limitations. He questioned Duchamp's thoughts on the incapacities of painting and produced his own version of 'Nude descending a staircase' with his painting of 'Ema (Nude on a staircase) 1966:

Marcel Duchamp 'Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2' 1912

Gerhard Richter ' Ema (Nude on a Staircase) 1966

Richter has produced a diverse range of paintings; many are based on photographs, although he has produced a lot of large abstract canvases. I wanted to know why he started blurring his paintings and discovered it was to show the materiality of paint and to show a sense of movement that can be expressed in photographs.

There were many paintings in this exhibition but here are a few which caught my eye, for various reasons:

Curtain III (Light) 1965

I liked the composition of this painting, it could have been abstract but for the bottom of the painting that gave the subject away. This painting reminded me of Alison Watt's work that I looked at last year - beautiful, massive canvases depicting white fabric.

Seascape (Sea-Sea) 1970

I thought this a clever painting, even though Richter was producing paintings from photos, this painting looks rather abstract in that one has difficulty working out that the top half of the painting is in fact sea and not sky as one would expect. It inspired me to continue with a painting of a wave that I have begun.

Detail (Brown) 1970

I am really interested in small details and getting up close to objects and photographing them. For this reason I liked this painting. Although it looks quite ordimary, I like the fact that Richter took close-up photos of his paintings and made more paintings from these detailed shots.

Room 6 (Exploring Abstraction) was full of very large and brightly coloured abstract paintings. However, I was very much drawn to the small portrait on wood panel of his daughter. I thought it technically brilliant in it's small understated way:

'Betty' 1977

The paintings in Room 9 (18 October 1977) were based on the mysterious deaths of former Nazis on 18 October 1977. All were in shades of gray and varied in terms of blurredness. I was particularly drawn to 'Hanged':

'Hanged' 1988

The painting is based on police photographs of the event. I find this ghostly image very moving, it is very obscured so that the viewer only sees a hint of the subject. Very clever.

September, 2005

I wrote one word in my notes when I saw this painting - 'awesome'. Because I have lived in New York, I feel an affinity with the city . When the twin towers were attacked I just stared at the TV all day, it was hideous. I think this painting is a powerful interpretation of a horrific event.

I'm pleased I went to see this exhibition as I nearly missed it. There has been a lot of discussion in our work-in-progress seminars recently about the future of painting. Having seen this exhibition, I think that painting still has a lot to 'say' in the visual arts and will continue to play an important part in contemporary art. It has inspired me to carry on painting.