Gerhard Richter. Without color. Ohne Farbe

Without Color presents an important group of paintings from Gerhard Richteris oeuvre: works without color–on which the painter ordinarily relies. The (non-) colors, black, white, and gray have always played an important role in Richteris art. Spanning four decades, from the early 1960s to the present, the broad, fascinating spectrum of these colorless paintings ranges from representational works based on black-and-white photographs, to entirely abstract paintings. Richter needs no more than a palette of grays to create impressive works in the traditional genres of history painting, portraiture, landscape, and still life. He explores the fundamental aspects of painting in images composed of streaks of gray, overpainting, and monochromatic gray color fields. The outcome is a cross-section that incorporates everything painting can mean today–while focusing on the innermost essence of painting through the paradoxical renunciation of color.