Between February 12th – April 4th, 1989, Gerhard Richter exhibited a group of 15 grey paintings at Haus Esters. In these paintings, Richter studied the lives and controversial deaths of four members of the German activists/terrorist organization, the Red Army Faction also known as the Baader Meinhof group. Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, Holger Meins, and Ulrike Meinhof all died under suspicious circumstances whilst in jail serving life long sentences. The title of this collection was October 18, 1977. Each painting was bleak, grey in color and blurred.

 

Amongst the 15 pieces of work, there were three paintings of Meinhof laid out after she had hanged herself with the noose still attached around her neck, paintings of Baader shot and one of the record players that were supposedly for sneaking in the gun that Baader shot himself with. 

 

When Richter was asked about how he narrowed down the photos to paint from the archive he said “the ones that weren’t paintable were the ones I did paint. The dead. To start with, I wanted more to paint the whole business, the world as it then was, the living reality – I was thinking in terms of something big and comprehensive. But then it all evolved quite differently, in the direction of death. And that’s really not all that unpaintable. Far from it, in fact. Death and suffering have always been an artistic theme. Basically, it is the theme. We’ve eventually managed to wean ourselves away from it, with our nice, tidy, lifestyle.”

In the reading group, we discussed the use of photographic imagery is used to make art and how Richter used photos to produce politically provoking pieces of work and if it was his intention to cause a stir. We spoke about how a painting could be more informative than a photo and if it has more power as an image. 

 

The other questions that came up were research and subject and whether it is better to start a painting through an image you have a hunch about and research off the back of what you make in the studio and why we choose certain subject matters. Richter talks about in his youth naively having ‘themes’, when he was asked about the timing of October 18, 1977, and why he painted the works he never answered the question.

 

Richter returned to the subject of terror in 2005 with his painting September, a painting of the twin towers being attacked. Discussing this image led to conversations on if political art loses its poignancy so long after the event had taken place.

The talk gave us as a group a great opportunity to discuss a range of art questions and problems and a way to relate approaching a subject to our own practice.