Gerhard Richter, Eis, 1981, Ruth McLoughlin Collection, Monaco © Gerhard Richter 2020

The Bank Austria Kunstforum Wien is dedicating the major autumn exhibition 2020 to an artist who has only rarely been a guest in the Austrian capital to date: Gerhard Richter (born 1932 in Dresden), who is considered the most important living painter internationally, will be an extensive one at the Kunstforum Show a retrospective of his landscape paintings. It is the first exhibition in the world to fully illuminate this genre. In addition to numerous oil paintings, drawings, prints, photographic works, artist books and objects that reflect the theme of “landscape” from the 1960s to the present day are also on display. Both well-known major works and works that have rarely or never been seen publicly are presented.

 The exhibition is divided into five large thematic sections and begins with those landscapes that Richter produced on the basis of his own or found photo motifs and whose detail, image structure and color have a decidedly photographic aesthetic. Richter expresses a "longing" and the "dream of classical order and an ideal world" in numerous atmospheric landscape pictures that are reminiscent of the art of Caspar David Friedrich. Richter reconsiders the lost possibilities of painting, as it could still be practiced in Romanticism. He calls his pictures "cuckoo eggs" because they are perceived as romantic, but can no longer continue Friedrich's spiritual tradition. The landscape also plays a key role in the development of Richter's abstract painting: In the 1960s and 1970s in particular, highly abstract images of mountains, parks, stars and the sea were created. These works alternate between depicted landscapes and a self-referential color material in broad, impasto brushstrokes. In the 1970s and 1990s, Richter also produced landscape images in the form of fictional constructs that can hardly exist or not exist in reality. Pictures of the sea, mountains and clouds were put together in terms of motifs in such a way that, due to their size or constellation, they suggest a totality of nature that surpasses any real experience. With these visionary designs, Richter seems to trace the aesthetic category of the sublime. Finally, the exhibition also presents abstract overpainting: oil paint was applied to the surface of landscape paintings, photographs and prints in a non-representational form. Paradoxically, the two simultaneous levels of reality enter into a close, ingenious connection in those works; they appear as an interlocking unit, the tension of which arises from the clear contrast between the various forms of production. This results in a surprising ambivalence between realism and non-objectivity, between appearance and reality. refined compound one; they appear as an interlocking unit, the tension of which arises from the clear contrast between the various forms of production. This results in a surprising ambivalence between realism and non-objectivity, between appearance and reality. refined compound one; they appear as an interlocking unit, the tension of which arises from the clear contrast between the various forms of production. This results in a surprising ambivalence between realism and non-objectivity, between appearance and reality.

Important institutional lenders and numerous top-class private collections support the exhibition project that has been in preparation for many years. The show will include around 150 works and will be realized with the generous help of Gerhard Richter and in cooperation with the Kunsthaus Zürich.

Curators: Hubertus Butin (Berlin) and Lisa Ortner-Kreil

October 1, 2020 - February 14, 2021

Gerhard Richter, Piz Surlej, Piz Corvatsch, 1992, oil on photography, 8.9 x 12.6 cm, private collection © Gerhard Richter 2020

Gerhard Richter, Venice, 1986. Oil on canvas, 86 x 121 cm, GR 606-3. Museum Frieder Burda, Baden-Baden © Gerhard Richter 2020

Gerhard Richter, Egyptian Landscape, 1964/65. Oil on canvas, 150 x 165 cm, GR 53. Private Collection. Courtesy Hauser & Wirth Collection Services © Gerhard Richter 2020

Gerhard Richter, Ruhrtalbrücke, 1969. Oil on canvas, 120 x 150 cm, GR 228. Private Collection. Courtesy Hauser & Wirth Collection Services © Gerhard Richter 2020.

Gerhard Richter, Seestück (gray), 1969. Oil on canvas, 70 x 70 cm, GR 224-16, Private collection © Gerhard Richter 2020, Photo: Achim Kukulies, Düsseldorf.

Gerhard Richter, Constellation, 1969. Oil on canvas, 92 x 92 cm, GR 255-4. Museum Frieder Burda, Baden-Baden © Gerhard Richter 2020.

Gerhard Richter, Waldstück (Okinawa), 1969. Oil on canvas, 174 x 124 cm, GR 215. Collection Anne & Wolfgang Titze © Gerhard Richter 2020.

Gerhard Richter, Seestück (See-See), 1970, oil on canvas, 200 x 200 cm, private collection © Gerhard Richter 2020.

Gerhard Richter, Waldhaus, 2004. Oil on canvas, 126 x 92 cm, private collection © Gerhard Richter 2020.