Louise Lawler: The Gerhard Richter Photographs

This volume appears in honor of Gerhard Richter’s 80th birthday. His world-renowned oeuvre consists in large part of photorealistic paintings. The book contains 21 works by American artist and photographer Louise Lawler, who examines how Gerhard Richter’s paintings are handled within the context of museums, commercial galleries, auction houses, and in private and public collections. Taken over a period of twenty years, her images focus on Richter’s paintings in situ or in transit to exemplify the way in which modern art is handled on the various levels of the contemporary art scene. The clear, colorful, always frugal, and near minimalist composition of her photographs corresponds in a singular way with Richter’s subdued paintings, which also have their origins in photography, resulting in a sort of media reflection, in a subdued echo, as it were.