Kerze II 1989

Gerhard Richter made Kerze II using paint and intuition. The canvas has a central hazy square with dark and light horizontal marks. The outer edges of the canvas have a crazy amount of drippy paint. It’s all about the gesture, that flick of the wrist, and how the paint responds. I can imagine Richter with his arm extended, the brush dancing across the surface. What’s so cool about his paintings is how he lets chance and accident play a role. Each mark becomes a record of a moment, a feeling. The blurred candle itself is less important than the act of image-making, the pushing and pulling of paint, the tension between control and chaos. He’s always in conversation with painting itself, with its history and possibilities, each work a new question, a new answer. It reminds me of other artists who use blurring to make imagery, like Francis Picabia. It makes you look, and look again!