Martin Germann

Gerhard Richter (*1932) is an exceptional personality – not because his pictures are world famous, but because he has demonstrated a new approach to painting. His art masterfully moves between abstraction and representation, sensuousness and denial – ambiv alent attitudes which he demonstrated even in his early work. Gerhard Richter’s oeuvre overcomes the division between abstract and representational art. His pictures neither cultivate a modest interplay of colours and forms nor do they deliver an intact p icture of reality. Richter is a sceptical artist who questions the reality of his art even when the prime subject of his paintings is the tangible. This applies in particular to his door, curtain and window pictures of the 1960s, which form the central foc us of this volume. They stage a playful examination of the illusory nature of art, which always questions what painting shows or conceals. This lavishly appointed volume is published to mark the artist’s 85th birthday.

The work of New York-based artist Don Dudley (born 1930) represents a dialogue between the Minimalist practices of the American East and West Coasts in the 1960s and '70s, while simultaneously speaking to a new generation of artists who are re-examining perfectionist surfaces and Minimalist practices. As The New York Times critic Ken Johnson wrote: "As if made for a Euclidean mystery cult, [Dudley's work] is classically modern and modernistically timeless." This publication, a substantial hardcover of almost 250 pages, is the first comprehensive monograph on the artist. It presents a rich selection of his wall installations, the aluminum and Homasote works, as well as works on paper and sketches, serving as a reminder of the relevance of Dudley's minimalism, with its striking optical effects and its ongoing exploration of object, surface and color.