Sunday, September 11, 2011

Gerhard Richter's "September"



Everything that could be said today is being said today, and I won’t add words, or many of them.

In May, we were in the bookshop of the Contemporary Art Museum in Chicago, and I found Robert Storr’s September: A History Painting by Gerhard Richter. I don’t agree with everything Storr, the dean of the School of Art at Yale University, has to say about 9/11 in the book -- too much of the East Coast liberal in him, and too much of the Midwest conservative in me. But I was taken with Richter’s painting. I had had a post over at High Calling Focus earlier this year about a Richter work at the St. Louis Art Museum, but I wasn’t aware of this work.

It’s small, approximately 20 by 30 inches. And while it doesn’t have the clarity of so many photographs, and the tragedy, horror and pain reflected on so many human faces that day, for me it represents much about what happened that day, what happened to all of us. 


Painting: September by Gerhard Richter (2005), The Museum of Modern Art, New York
at

7 comments:

  1. AnonymousSeptember 11, 2011 at 10:30 AM

    interesting the work that richter does with photographs.

    sometimes a picture, a face, a touch, or someone just showing-up can say so much more than words.

    and sometimes the words we are given are the words that another person needs to hear at that time, even though it may not be apparent to the speaker.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Louise GallagherSeptember 11, 2011 at 11:10 AM

    I agree Nance -- we don't know how our words, or photos, or our actions will affect another. I do know, whenmy intent is Love, Love is all I can offer.

    Hugs

    ReplyDelete
  3. MaureenSeptember 11, 2011 at 12:17 PM

    Richter's is the erasing away, slowly at first and then all of a piece. Everything lost that day - clarity, a sense of purpose, confidence - is in that painting. We remain obscured for all that we failed then and fail now to see reflected in "September".

    ReplyDelete
  4. Michelle DeRushaSeptember 11, 2011 at 2:17 PM

    That's a really compelling rendering of the twin towers and the aftermath that still remains of that day. I looked at that painting a long time. Thanks for including it here, Glynn.

    ReplyDelete
  5. UnknownSeptember 11, 2011 at 4:57 PM

    Thanks bro'...that was powerful.

    ReplyDelete
  6. S. EtoleSeptember 11, 2011 at 11:30 PM

    That's an extremely evocative painting. Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  7. H. GillhamSeptember 13, 2011 at 7:00 AM

    I just couldn't watch all the media coverage of 9/11, and I surely couldn't blog about it either, so I'm with you.

    The painting pulls it forward in an original way. Thanks for sharing it.

    ReplyDelete