192 Farben 1966

Richter made this painting with oil paint, it’s a grid of colour, and you know, when you see it, you immediately think about process. The material aspects are so present here. The texture, the colour, the surface, it all speaks to this physicality of the medium. The paint isn't super thick, but it's not thin either, it is opaque, you can’t see through it. It’s hard to tell what tools Richter used, maybe a squeegee? The process is a bit concealed. There’s one patch in the bottom left corner – a deep, almost black, brown. It anchors the whole piece. It stops the eye from floating away. It gives the other colours something to play against. Richter's work is like an ongoing conversation about art history. He's in dialogue with the Color Field painters, like Rothko, but he's also pushing back, making something new. It is a painting that embraces ambiguity, multiple interpretations, and the ever-evolving exchange of ideas.