Gerhard Richter: Thing (page 2)

“So I started to paint like crazy, from figurative to abstract. Then after a year, I put it all on a bonfire in the courtyard of the academy. I suppose there was some ritual involved, but I didn't tell anyone before I did it, so it wasn't public, and I felt the work had to be burned because people were already taking things and paintings were starting to circulate. I had to prevent that because I realized it was time to start from scratch. Photographs were the way forward. I'm shocked now that the story seems clear, because it didn't seem clear at the time.”

Gerhard Richter

after 2000, Gerhard Richter: An Artist Beyond Isms' (2002)

People , Way , Time , Painting

“But my motivation was more a matter of wanting to create order – to keep track of things. All those boxes full of photographs and sketches weigh you down, because they have something unfinished, incomplete, about them. So it's better to present the usable material in an orderly fashion and throw the other stuff away. That's how the Atlas came to be, and I exhibited it a few times.”

Gerhard Richter

Quote of an interview with Stefan Koldehoff, 1999; as cited on collected quotes on the website of Gerhard Richter: 'on Atlas' https://www.gerhard-richter.com/en/quotes/atlas-4
1990's

Motivation , Fashion , Time , Box

“My first photo Picture? I was doing large pictures in gloss enamel... One day a photograph of Brigit Bardot fell into my hands, and I painted it into one of these pictures in shades of grey. I had had enough of bloody painting, and painting from a photograph seemed to me the most moronic.... thing that everyone could do.”

Gerhard Richter

Source: after 2000, Doubt and belief in painting' (2003), p. 43, note 36 : quote on his start with photography

Photo , Painting

“I have always been structured. What has changed is the proportions. Now it is eight hours of paperwork and one of painting. I go to the studio every day, but I don't paint every day. I love playing with my architectural models. I love making plans. I could spend my life arranging things. Weeks go by, and I don't paint until finally I can't stand it any longer. I get fed up. I almost don't want to talk about it, because I don't want to become self-conscious about it, but perhaps I create these little crises as a kind of a secret strategy to push myself. It is a danger to wait around for an idea to occur to you. You have to find the idea.”

Gerhard Richter

after 2000, Gerhard Richter: An Artist Beyond Isms' (2002)

Love , Life , Secret , Idea

“Picturing things, taking a view, is what makes us human; art is making sense and giving shape to that sense. It is like the religious search for God. We are well aware that making sense and picturing are artificial, like illusion; but we can never give them up. For belief (thinking out and interpreting the present and the future) is our most important characteristic.”

Gerhard Richter

undated quotes, The Daily Practice of Painting, Writings (1962-1993)

God , Art , Search , Thinking