Cage Grid I Single Part E

Cage Grid I Single Part E allows the intricacies of Richter’s squeegee-based approach to come to the fore with both unrivalled dynamism and beguiling complexity. In amongst the sombre, reflective washes of monochrome and green are flashes of red and neon, incidental markers testament to the layer of brighter, bolder colour concealed below another freshly-applied layer of paint. Despite being far from photographic, the work maintains a close relationship to those semi-realist works of Richter’s that comprise representational elements and gestural, obscuring layers of paint. Examples of these include the haunting September (2009) and Kassel (1992).

A further example of Richter’s ‘blurring’ technique, Cage Grid I Single Part E sees the artist cede his representational sensibilities to those creative forces product of emotion and sensorial experience. Exploring the thinking behind his blur technique, Richter says: ‘I blur things so that they do not look artistic or craftsmanlike but technological, smooth and perfect. I blur things to make all the parts a closer fit. Perhaps I also blur out the excess of unimportant information.’ In this print, therefore, Richter channels little other than the visceral, atonal music of John Cage, which he had been listening to whilst creating his Cage series. Referential visual information is unimportant: it is feeling that counts.