24.6.88 1988

Gerhard Richter created this watercolour painting, “24.6.88,” on that very date. The work seems to capture a fleeting moment, but what moment could that be? Richter came of age in divided Germany and his career reflects an interrogation of the role of images in shaping public life. Having trained in East German socialist realism, Richter then embraced a more ambiguously critical position as part of the West German avant-garde. This turn away from representation and towards abstraction came after Germany’s reckoning with its recent history, with institutions that had promoted a national mythology now discredited. Richter’s art wrestles with how painting could function after that reckoning, with both historical and aesthetic questions at stake. To understand “24.6.88,” one might look at other works made that day, tracing the historical context in his diaries, exhibition catalogues, and critical reviews. By examining what art can do, we learn much about the society in which it was made.