Wald

Gerhard Richter selected 285 photographs for this publication. They are part of a voluminous collection of photos which he took in the forest near his house in Köln-Hahn-wald, beginning in the winter of 2005/2006.

As text (in German only) he used essays published in the trade magazine Waldung – Magazin für Wald, Wandern, Wissen (No.1/2006). All words were shuffled by means of a random generator. Subsequently, Richter removed all names and passages that were too explicit. However the resulting absurd text can still be recognized as a text on forest issues.

Richter divides the type area in seven horizontal stripes arranging them following a strict concept which he subsequently undermined by specific interventions. The 106 variously assigned pages fill continuously with text, emptying gradually after the only completely filled page in the middle is reached – fading in and fading out of images.

By sorting the photographs roughly in groups – delicate branches, horizontal logs, diagonally or vertically growing trees – and arranging them dramatically with the text pages, a sophisticated and exciting book evolves. Wald as an autonomous artist book is much more than a further extension of plates of the Atlas, opening-up analogies too Richter’s entire oeuvre.