Cage 5 2020

Gerhard Richter made "Cage 5," likely with oil on canvas, using a squeegee to drag paint across the surface. You know, sometimes it feels like painting is just moving stuff around until something interesting happens, right? Up close, you can see the layers – gray, white, and little pops of red, yellow, and blue. It's like he's building up this gritty, atmospheric world. There’s a horizontal emphasis to the marks, maybe evoking landscape? The paint isn't super thick, but you can see the texture where the squeegee has pulled and scraped. Look at that cluster of red marks near the top. It’s a burst of energy against the muted tones, a focal point that keeps your eye moving. Richter is definitely in conversation with Abstract Expressionists like de Kooning, but he pushes it further into abstraction. He’s not afraid to let the process be visible. For Richter, and for me too, meaning isn’t fixed; it’s something that emerges through the act of painting itself.