Daniel Richter Stupor

 

 

 

 

New paintings by Daniel Richter reassert the German artist’s ever-inventive approach to depicting the human body. For this exhibition, he presents works that capture biomorphic forms in a series of twisting poses, vibrating with an energy imparted through his bold palette and dynamic mark-making. Embodying his investigative approach to artmaking, these works are as much experiments in colour, line and technique as figurative studies, carving out a distinct place within the artist’s wider oeuvre.

 

 

 

Watch curator Lydia Yee discuss the exhibition

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Since 2015, Richter has investigated the relationship between the backgrounds, foregrounds and subjects of his works. In these paintings he continues his stylistic experimentation. He depicts his figures against grey backgrounds that are then almost entirely covered by another layer of paint, isolating the bodies within seas of vibrant red. 

 

Daniel Richter

Mühen der Ebene, 2023

Oil on canvas

230 x 170 cm (90.55 x 66.93 in)

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Red is so obviously the signal colour. It's the colour of blood and communism, of the Red Cross, of these warning signs, of advertisement, of Barbara Kruger. I thought it was the biggest challenge because it's a colour you cannot ignore.

 

— Daniel Richter

I add the red with a spackle knife. The background is actually the foreground, or it's the last part I paint. For me, that was important. The red is entering or chafing away the rest of the painting, not the other way around. It's getting squeezed, you know, or getting limited or pushed, like [with] a giant hand or two giant hands. 

 

Daniel Richter

Zukunfte, 2023

Oil on canvas

230 x 170 cm (90.55 x 66.93 in) 

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While previous series of paintings draw upon specific visual source material, these new works echo Richter’s observations of the world around him. ‘It’s based on random sketches and notes,’ he explains, ‘[an] old woman passing by, [a] child at the dentist, boys playing basketball, stuff life that.’ 

 

These new works of Daniel’s are definitely a continuation of what he had been working on before, but also a departure. I see some of the same strategies that have been at play in his work since 2015: the focus on the single figures, the tension between the picture plane and the foreground, the tension between abstraction and figuration. But I also think he’s stripped things back.

 

— Lydia Yee, curator

 

 

Daniel Richter

Seele, heimatlos etc., 2023

Oil on canvas

230 x 170 cm (90.55 x 66.93 in)

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We don’t see the emphasis on the relationship of the figure to a space [...] In some ways, it is what you see some artists doing in Photoshop, getting rid of the extraneous, setting the figures against a green screen, a plain background. [...] So the tension is coming from the interplay and relationship among the figures themselves rather than the tension between the background and figures. 

— Lydia Yee, curator

 

Daniel Richter

beschlossene Feindschaft, 2023

Oil on canvas

230 x 170 cm (90.55 x 66.93 in)

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Music and its countercultures have been of deep importance to Richter throughout his life, and its influences are often found in his work.
‘Nightmare’, a song by the German-Austrian composer Hanns Eisler (1898–1962), stands as a touchstone for this new group of paintings. 

 

‘Nightmare’ was written after Eisler’s persecution by the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947, following his emigration from Germany to Los Angeles. Against the backdrop of McCarthyism, Eisler was erroneously charged for holding communist sympathies. The lyrics brand the committee members ‘the rat men’ in a critique of his unjust treatment and the wider governmental suppression of left-wing intellectuals and artists. ‘The Eisler song is a sarcastic and bitter reminder that current events have their historic precursors,’ notes Richter. 

 

Daniel Richter

moralischer Schabernack, 2023

Oil on canvas

230 x 170 cm (90.55 x 66.93 in)

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The rat men accused me of not liking stench,
of not liking garbage, of not liking their squeals,
of not liking to eat dirt. For days they argued,
considering the question from every angle,
finally they condemned me.
You don’t like stench, you don’t like garbage,
You don’t like our squeals;
You don’t like to eat dirt.

— Hanns Eisler, ‘Nightmare’ from Hollywooder Liederbuch (1938–48)

 

 

Daniel Richter

Schmiede des Unglücks, 2023

Oil on canvas

230 x 170 cm (90.55 x 66.93 in)

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Learn more about the artist  

 

Download the press release