Though to a guy making something called Atlas in his spare time it still probably feels pretty empty and limited, Gerhard Richter’s website is pretty expansive. Via Twitter, we learn that his web elves have just added a quotes section, most of which is taken from Gerhard Richter: Text. Writing, Interviews and Letters 1961-2007 (2009), the UK edition of the artist’s second collection of writings, both of which were edited by Hans Ulrich Obrist.
I was about to bit the bullet and buy the expensive, out-of-print The Daily Practice of Painting: Writings 1962-1993 when the new edition came out, and I’ve hesitated, waiting to see how or if the two volumes overlap. So far, I’ve seen nothing; I guess I’ll have to pigeonhole Hans-Ulrich at the next global 24-hr art lecture marathon.
Meanwhile, I went ahead and bought Gerhard Richter: Writings 1961 – 2007, the US edition, so I’m just a couple of days away from seeing whether this awesome quote about blurring from 1964-5 [!] is, in fact, on page 33:
I blur things to make everything equally important and equally unimportant. I blur things so that they do not look artistic or craftsmanlike but technological, smooth and perfect. I blur things to make all the parts a closer fit. Perhaps I also blur out the excess of unimportant information.