Gerhard Richter, one of the world’s greatest living painters and now nearly 80 years old, talks about his work as a small film crew documents his creative process. “Akin to being in a museum that’s come alive.” — Film Comment
Magnificent and evocative observances of Richter laboring in his studio come as close as cinema gets to tracking the impulses and paradoxes of a gifted imagination.
Screened as part of NZIFF 2012
Gerhard Richter Painting 2011
“Corinna Belz’s process-oriented record of, yes, Gerhard Richter painting, sometimes pulls in close, sometimes stays back, as the calm, kindly, rigorous master digs into a series of abstracts in his Cologne studio. Aside from showing Richter attending to daily business and archival glimpses of his feisty younger self, the documentary sticks with the now-80-year-old artist as he paints, pauses, contemplates, and offers humble-sounding koans… Most exciting of all is the heavy scrape of the giant squeegee Richter draws across the canvas, magically transforming the paint below and thrilling the eye and ear with the near-tactile reality of contact and creation. Serene and soft-spoken, Richter resembles an absent-minded uncle, though his powers of observation snap into focus when, for example, he declares a painting may last only a few hours and then appear worthless… At times filling the screen with symmetrical compositions of paintings in progress in the studio, the film is akin to being in a museum that’s come alive.” — Nicolas Rapold, Film Comment