Gerhard Richter Painting

Gerhard Richter, one of contemporary art’s most fascinating and elusive masters, the subject of a large-scale 80th birthday retrospective at the Tate Modern (London, 2011). The film is the chronicle of an exclusive dialogue established between the artist and the director who, in 2007, filmed a documentary about the re-creation of a stained-glass window of the Cathedral of Cologne, destroyed during WW2 bombings, traces an inspired portrait of Richter and offers a glimpse into his studio, where the artist is intent on painting. She engages in dialogue with him, his assistants, New York gallerist Marian Goodman and art historian Benjamin H.D.Buchloh. A privileged observer of the creation of a cycle of large abstract paintings executed between the spring and summer of 2009, Corinna Belz approaches Richter’s painting by contemplating it during its creation, through stratifications and subtractions of color, and restores the gestures and words of the artist with images of great intensity.