25 Colours 2007

Gerhard Richter made this painting, titled 25 Colours, with paint on canvas, and in it, he sets up a grid of pure colour. The paint isn't exactly thick, but it's present, like a film stretched tight across each square. Look closely, and you'll notice that each colour has this slight texture, like a memory of the brush that laid it down. There is something about this systematic approach that I find really interesting, and, in a way, funny. It's like he's saying, "Here they are, the colours," and then he leaves it up to us to figure out what to do with them. The way the colours interact is surprising – they don’t blend so much as vibrate against each other. You can’t help but think of Josef Albers when looking at this work, especially his work on colour theory, but Richter brings his own sensibility, questioning the way we see and perceive, suggesting that art is always an experiment, a journey of discovery.