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M T Press
Painting Negation: Gerhard Richter's NegativesAuthor(s): Peter OsborneSource: October, Vol. 62 (Autumn, 1992), pp. 102-113Published by: MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/778704
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Painting
Negation:
Gerhard
Richter's
Negatives*
PETER
OSBORNE
DAGUERREOTYPE-Will
take he
place
of
painting.
See
Photography.)
PHOTOGRAPHY-
Will
make
painting
obsolete.
See
Daguerreotype.)
-Gustave
Flaubert,
Dictionary
f
Received
deas
Of all the issuesraisedbyRichter'spaintings, erhapsthemost ntractable
is
that of
where to
place
them within
critical
history
f
contemporary
rt. For
it
is a
paradox
of
Richter's
work that
while it
derives
both its
force and its
modernity
rom he
consistency
f its
ddress to a
single problem-the
problem
of the
continuing possiblity
f
painting
as
a
historically ignificant
ctivity-it
is
precisely
this
consistency
hat
threatens o
cut it off
from
the
wider
history
of
which it
is a
part,
to
enclose it
within
he
horizon of
a
self-containedwill
to
paint
and
thereby,
mplicitly,
o block off
that
very
futurefor
painting
which t
might
therwise e
thought
o
have
opened
up.
There
is
something
xceptional,
somethinghistorically
xceptional,
about
Richter'swork
that has
yet
to
be
fully
clarified.And this s notbecause it avoids or is in anyway displaced fromthe
issues of
its
time,
but rather
because of
the
specific
form
and,
indeed,
the
peculiar
success f its
engagement
withthem.
Furthermore,
t
would
seem to
be
something
about the
particular
emporal
ogic
of
this
engagement-what
Ste-
fan
Germer
has described as its
"dialectical
mediation of
proximity
and
*
An
earlier version of
a
part
of
this
essay
was
published
in Art
and
Design,
"Profile
on
Contemporary
Painting,"
vol.
7,
no.
3/4
1992).
This
essay,
and
the
three
essays
on
Gerhard
Richter hat
follow,
erive from
talks
given
at
the
conference
"History,
Photography,Memory
n
the
Paintings
of
Gerhard
Richter" t
the Tate
Gallery, ondon, December 7, 1991. The conferencewasorganizedbyAndrewBenjaminand Peter
Osborne
in
conjunction
with
the
Richter
xhibition,
urated
by
Sean
Rainbird,
that
was
held
there
between
October
30, 1991,
and
January
12,
1992,
and it
was
sponsored by
the Tate
Gallery
and
the
Goethe-Institut,
ondon.
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Gerhard
ichter.
lfa
Romeo.
1965.
r
als
sein
Vor-
'n
Stelle
er
ge.
alot
ie
Zeichen
bis 1500ccm
Jesenkt,
dabei
auf
12
Monate
n
1100
D
der
England
und
Einliter-Wagen
Cardinal,
Mor-
M)
begegnen.
for
die
Neu-
Fiat
hat
alien
n
ausgereiftes,
>laren zur Zu-
iufendes
Auto-
generellen
Ex-
orgesehen
und
I-
.
.I
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104
OCTOBER
distance"'-that
imparts
to Richter's
paintings
heirbroader
meaning
as
sites
forthe
exploration
of the dilemmas intrinsic o
painting.
Richter's
paintings,
one
might
ay,
re
timely
nly
nsofar s
they
re
untimely; ntimely nly
nsofar
as
they merge
out
of
the
most
thorough
mmersion
n
the
artistic
roblems
of
their
day.
Foremost
mong
these
problems
s
the
continuing hallenge
to
paint-
ing,
of whatever
kind,
presentedby
the
power
of the
photographic mage.
In what
follows offer
preliminary
ttempt
t a
reconstruction f
the
art-historical
ogic
of Richter's
work as it
presents
tself
within he
conceptual
space
of a double
negation:
of
paintingby
photography
nd
photography y
painting.
n the
process
I
hope
to shed some
light
upon
the
ontological
tatus
of contemporary ainting nd to givean indication f thecontribution hat a
fuller
nalysis
of
Richter'swork has to
make to the
rethinking
f the
history
f
modernism.
Painting
s
a Means
for
Photography
The idea
that
photography
s a threat o
painting
s as old as
photography
itself;
s
old,
in
fact,
s
modernism.
Painting
fter
photography
has
been
dif-
ferent
from
painting
before.
Yet for all that
has
gone
between,
the
question
persists:
how to
paint, why
to
paint,
what to
paint,
"after
photography"?
Rich-
ter's worktakesup thisquestionat thebeginning f the 1960s at the moment
of
its second
major
historical
eprise,
the moment
of crisisof
the
hegemonic
project
in
postwar
American and
European
painting:
the
crisis
of modernist
abstraction.
Richter's
esponse
s
simple,
yet
mbivalent:
o return
o the source
of
the crisis
the
displacement
f
painting
from
ts naturalistic
epresentational
function)
nd
address
painting's
historical
osition
directly,
ot as
a
description,
but
as a task:
painting
after"
photography
s
painting
in
the
manner
of"
the
photograph;
painting
as
photo-painting.
Richter's
response
to
the recurrence
of the
crisis of
painting
was not to search
for new artistic
media,
to
seek to
expand
the
extension
of the term
rt-undoubtedly
the dominant
tendency
f
thetime-although he was involved n certainnotoriousFluxushappenings n
Diisseldorf
n 1963.
Rather,
t
was,
and
remains,
o
paint:
to seek
out new
ways
of
painting
hat void
the dual
pitfalls
f a redundant
figuration
nd the nflated
subjectivism,
dealism,
nd existential
weightlessness
f various
related
forms f
abstraction.
By
the
very
factof
continuing
o
paint,
Richter
et himself
gainst
the
more radical
artistic
and
anti-artistic)
mpulses
of
his
day.
The use
of
photographs
s the
source,
basis,
or
subject
of
paintings
per-
forms number
of
different unctions
n Richter's
arly
work.
n
the first
lace,
the
objectivity
r
givenness
of the
photographic
mage
is used to counter the
1. Stefan
Germer,
"Unbidden
Memories,"
n Gerhard ichter:
8. Oktober
977,
trans.
Daniel
Anthony
ezzi,
Julia
Bernard,
and
Shaun
Whiteside
London:
Institute
f
Contemporary
Art
in
association
with
Anthony
d'Offay
Gallery,
1989),
p.
7.
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WOO.=
u~ 8:
W?]~*:~~bY~(l
MV--- I
I--
NP
7--~
rror
%**111
1W
tam
*
TACT
31-P$
Ibr
.............."~"
P"NL~ ~t
L llllll
perceived subjectivism
f
painting
t
two
distinct evels:
extrinsically,y
taking
away
the
responsibility
or the
representational
ontentfromthe
painting
nd
displacing
t onto the
photography,
nd
intrinsically,
y thereby
redetermining
thecompositionalformof thepicture nd reducing tsrepresentationalaskto
that
of
the
apparent replication
or
simple reproduction
of the
mechanically
produced image,
in
painterly
mimicry
f
the
aspiration
to
objectivity
f the
naturalistic
epresentational
unction
tself,
surped
by
photography
from an
older
tradition
n
painting.
At this
evel,
such
painting
may
be seen to function
as
a
quasi-photographic eproduction
f
photography,
nsofar s
photography
has here become
the
paradigm
or
model for the
"objective"
eproduction
f
an
image.
In this
respect,
the
early photo-paintingsmay
be
seen to
partake
fully
in
the
recognition
f the historical
negation
of
paintingby photography,
while
refusing
both the
orthodox modernist
response
of an
affirmative ithdrawal
intopainterly utonomythroughabstractionbe it in the name of spiritual r
"pure
painterly"
alues)
and
the more
radical
avant-gardist
ejection
f
painting
Gerhard
ichter.
ityscape,
Madrid.
1968.
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106
OCTOBER
altogether
the
readymade).Photo-painting,
ne
might ay,
s
an
affirmationf
photography
y
ainting.2
It would be
a
mistake,
herefore,
o see
Richter's
hoto-paintings
s
paint-
erly representations
f
objects
that use
photographs
imply
s models or me-
diating
forms o secure the
objectivity
f the
image.
Rather,
hey
re
paintings
of
photographs
that
produce
the
inevitable
ide effect f
a
doubly
distanced
reference o the
object-a secondary
function he secondariness
hat
s
initially
signified
y
the
occasional
inclusionof textwithin
he
picture
or
by
some other
manipulation
of the
picture
frame.3
At
the same
time,however,
his
doubling
of
the distance
of the
painting
from
he "real"
object
n the
photograph
hould
not be taken to signifyome primacy f formover content, ome purelyfor-
malist
play
with modes of
representation,
ince the "content"here is
the
pho-
tograph
tself-both
the
particular hotograph
nd,
through
t,
the
practice
of
photography,
n
all the
richness,
epth,
and
range
of
its
cultural
reference.4
2.
This does not
make
it an
"updating"
of the
readymade
n reaction o its
reification,
s claimed
by
Germer.
See
Stefan
Germer,
Retrospective
head,"
in
Gerhard
ichter,
d. Sean Rainbird
and
Judith
everne
London:
Tate
Gallery,
9911,
p.
25-26,
which
follows
enjamin
Buchloh,
'Ready-
made,'
photographie
et
peinture
dans
la
peinture
de Gerhard
Richter,"
n Gerhard
ichter
Paris,
1977],
pp.
11-58.)
Reification
s the
point
of the
readymade.
The
problem
t faces over time
s not
reification,
ut
routinization:
he
dissipation
of the
negativity
f
the
strategy
f
pure
nomination
overtime.Nor shouldRichter's
hoto-paintings
e confusedwith ither
photorealism
the
adoption
of
a certain
photographic
opticality
s a
visual
ideal)
or Warhol's
silkscreen
aintings,
with
which
they
are
often
compared
(although
they
are
obviously
related).
Photo-painting cknowledges
the
historical
mport
f the
readymade
nsofar
s the
photographs
pon
which
t s based are
readymade
pictures,
he
images
of
which re
raised to the
power
of
art,
n
part,
by
their election
by
the artist
as
the basis
for
paintings.
But this does
not so much
"update"
the
readymade
as
regress
t to
the
status
of an
artisticmaterial.
For
it
is
no mere
nomination
here that renders
the
photographic
image
"art,"
but
its transformation
nto a
traditional
rtisticmedium
painting).
f
anything,
hoto-
painting
thus
passes
an
ironic comment
on
the
failure
of the
readymade
to
secure
itself
future
independent
of the
model
from which
it derived
(photography).
For
an
interpretation
f the
readymade
as a
"delayed
action"
of
photography,
ee
Thierry
de
Duve,
"A
propos
du
readymade,"
Parachute
7
(Spring
1977),
pp.
19-22.
As
will
be
clear from
what
follows,
his
piece
is
greatly
indebted
to
Germer's
ssay
forthe
stimulation
t
provided
to
clarify
he
philosophical
ssues
at stake
in the relationsbetween
painting,
hotography,
nd the
readymade
n Richter'swork.
3.
See,
for
example,
Folding
Clothes
orse
1962)
and
Alfa
Romeo
1965),
both of which
were
exhibited
t the recent
Pop
Art Show
at the
Royal
Academy
n London
(see
Pop
Art
London:
Royal
Academy
of
Arts,
1991],
pp.
191
&
193),
where
they
were
generally
reated
by
reviewers
f the
exhibition
s
poor
continental
mitations f
a
quintessentially
nglo-American
orm.Richter
himself
must
shoulder
some
of the blame
for such
misreadings,
having
declared
himself German
Pop
artist
while n
Paris
in
1963-in
part
in a
spirit
f ironic reversal
in
tune
withthe
coining
of
the
phrase "capitalist
ealism"
o
describe
the
"Living
with
Pop"
event
t
a furniture
tore n
Diisseldorf
in
October
of the
same
year)
and
in
part,
one
suspects,
s a
marketing
trategy
hat
misfired
nce
he
moved
away
from his
tyle
f
photo-painting,
ince
t
mpeded
recognition
f the
continuity
f
his
project.
With
the
increasingly
ationalistic
marketing
f German
art
in the international
rt
world
in
the 1970s
and
'80s,
the
inappropriate
abel
of
"German
Pop"
was one
that stuck.
Richter
would
have to
wait until
the
late
1980s
for
anythng
pproaching
the international
eputation
accorded his German peers,bywhich timehis turnto large-scale bstraction ad introducednew
ambiguities
nto his
work thatenabled
it to
be
read
(and
misread)
within
uite
different,
nd
more
traditional,
erms.
4. It
does
not seem
irrelevant,
or
example,
that
many
of
the
early photo-paintings
re
of
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Painting
Negation:
Gerhard
ichter's
egatives
107
The
purpose
of these
paintings,
Richterhas
maintained,
was
not to
use
photography
as a means for
painting,
but "to use
painting
as a means for
photography"5--as
a
means,
one
might
ay,
for the
interrogation
f the
photo-
graph
as a cultural
form,
ven
perhaps, paradoxically,
or its elevation.
hoto-
painting
acts
to
add a
moment of
cognitive
reflection,
f
historical nd
repre-
sentational
elf-consciousness,
o the
experience
of
the
photographic
mage.
It
creates
a
space
and a time
for reflection
pon
that
mage
which s
qualitatively
different rom
that
of
the
photograph
tself,
haunted as such
experience
is
by
the
trace of the
object.
Every
photograph,
Barthes
has
argued,
is
"a
certificate
of
presence":
the
presence
of
the
past
within
he
present.6
very
photo-painting
is also a certificate f presence,butof anotherkind: the resence fthephotograph
in
representation.
his is
a
presence
that
can
only
be
marked
beyond
the
photo-
graph
itself,
y
a
different
epresentational
orm.
t
is
this
presence
of
photog-
raphy
within
the
paintings
that,
to
return to
Germer's
phrase
quoted
above,
establishes them
as a
"mediation of
proximity
nd
distance":
proximity
nd
distance
to
the
photograph
the
presence
of the
past
within
he
present),
prox-
imity
nd distance to
history
the
social
power
of
the
photographic
mage).
It is
this
dialectical
mediation,
n
turn,
that makes
photo-painting
n
some
way
em-
blematicof
the
dilemma of
contemporary
ainting:
the
dilemma of
its
relation
to
the
history
f
its
negation.
Photo-paintings an affirmation fphotography ypainting.Yet it s also,
thereby,
form
of
painting:
an
affirmation f
painting
n
the
face of
photog-
raphy.
For
all their
acknowledgment
f
the
hegemony
of
photography
as
a
means of
image
production,
for all
their
participation
n
the
negation
of
paint-
ing's
function
of
naturalistic
epresentation
by
photography,
Richter's
photo-
paintings
emain,
nsistently,
aintings.
f
the
use of
photographs
s
the
subjects
of
the
paintings,
long
with
the
quasi-photographic
spects
of
their
form,
ig-
nifies
recognition
f
the
historical
negation
of
paintingby
photography,
uch
pictures
nonetheless nact
a
painterly
egation
f
this
negation,
reappropriation
of
photography by
painting,
that would
seem to
seek
to
rescue
painting,
as
photo-painting, rom ts fallenposition-however little hismayhave been the
original
ntent f
these
pictures.
The
question
thus
arises
as to the
meaning
of
women,
or
that
these women
have often
been
the
subjects
of
violent
deaths.
The
point
s
illustrated
by
the
following
works:
Lovers
n a
Forest
1966),
Emma
1966),
Helga
Matura
1966),
Student
1967),
Olympia
1967),
Eight
Student urses
1971),
Portrait
f
a
Young
Woman
1988),
Confrontation
1988),
Dead
(1988).
The
idea
of
an
intrinsic
onnection
between
photography,
eath,
and
identity,
stab-
lished
by
the
temporality
or
extratemporality)
eculiar
to
the
photographic
mage,
has been
central
to much
recent
work on
photography.
ee in
particular
Roland
Barthes,
Camera
Lucida:
Reflections
on
Photography
1980),
trans.
Richard
Howard
(London:
Fontana,
1984)
and
Philippe
Dubois,
L'acte
photographique
Paris:
Nathan and
Labor,
1983).
5. Rolf Schon, "InterviewwithGerhard Richter," n GerhardRichter: 6. Biennaledi Venezia
(Essen:
Museum
Folkwang,
1972),
p.
23,
quoted
by
Roald
Nasgaard,
Gerhard
Richter
aintings
(London:
Thames and
Hudson,
1988),
p.
47.
6.
Barthes,
Camera
Lucida,
pp.
87-88.
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108 OCTOBER
thisdouble
negation,
f
paintingby photography
nd
photography
y
painting.
What kind f
painting
does it
begin?
Negating
he
Negation
Philosophically,
ne can
distinguish
t least three
quite
different
ersions
of the
idea
of a double
negation.
First,
here s the mathematicalmodel of the
double
negative
as a return to the
starting
oint,
with the second
negation
a
literalcancellation
of the first.
According
to this
model,
the essentialnature of
painting
as
an art form would be uneffected
by
the
mediating
role of the
photographic mage. This is, however, n ahistorical nd therefore ntenable
position.
Secondly,
there is the
Hegelian
model
of
double
negation
as
super-
session
Aufhebung):
he
transcendence,
reservation,
nd hence
transfiguration
of
the relation
established
by
the first
egation,
s
it
is viewed as
an
aspect
or
moment
of a wider
process
driven
by
the successive
production
nd resolution
of contradictions.
his is double
negation
as a
new
beginning
t a
higher
con-
ceptual
level.7
In this
case,
we would be
talking
bout
a
qualitative
transfor-
mation
in
the
meaning
of
painting,
new
positivity,
hich would
begin
the
history
f
painting
new.8
This
is the
strongest
istorical laim
that an
be made
for Richter's
work: that t
begins
painting
new. Yet one should be
wary
of it.
For it carriesthe burden of a certaintriumphantalism,lmostwhollyforeign
to the restlessness
nd
skepticism
f
so
much of Richter's
work,
n which the
riskof
experimentation
emains
open,
as it
must,
o the
possibility
indeed,
the
necessity)
f
failure;
n
which,
n
fact,
t one
level,
success
success
n
painting)
is at risk
of
becoming
the
greatest
ailure t
all. More
generally,
uch
a
position
attributes o
painting
the
capacity
to
overcome,
by
itself,
he contradictions
f
its historical
ituation,
o raise itself
bove them and
simplypaint
them
away.
Any
such
capacity
would obliterate
he tension
n
Richter's
work-the historical
tension
hat
gives
t ts
deeper
meaning
nd
wider ultural esonance-in
return
for a
merely
ffirmative
rt.9
Finally, here s thatnotionof a doublenegationwhichplacesitself etween
these two
conceptions,
n
the name
of
giving
dialectics materialist
urn:
Ador-
no's
conception
of a
negative
dialectic
n
which he second
negation,
ather han
either
returning
s to
our
starting oint
painting
s
it was
prior
to its relation
to
photography)
r
reconstituting
he
identity
f each term
painting
nd
pho-
7.
Hegel's
Logic:
Being
Part One
of
he
ncyclopedia
f
he
hilosophical
ciences
1830),
trans.
William
Wallace
(Oxford:
Oxford
University
ress,
1975),
p.
142.
8.
Germer,
Retrospective
Ahead,"
p.
24.
9.
Herbert
Marcuse,
"The
Affirmative
haracter
of Culture"
(1937),
in
Negations: ssays
n
CriticalTheoryBoston: Beacon Press, 1968), pp. 88-133. To assertsuch a capacitywould also, of
course,
be a
betrayal
of
the
totalizing erspective
f
Hegel's thought
n
the
name of a
schematic
application
of his
logic
to the
understanding
f a
particular
ultural
sphere.
It would be
to
treat
painting
s a
self-sufficient
orm.
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tography)
from
the
standpoint
of
a
new,
"higher," positivity
the
Hegelian
reading),
marks
ime,
wells on the
reciprocal
negativity
f the
nonidentity
f
the
two
terms,
nd
finds
here,
within he
determinacy
f
theirmutual
negation,
the
utopian
shadow
of the
reconciliationt s denied. "What s
negated,"
Adorno
writes,
is
negative,
until t has
passed.
This is
the decisive
break with
Hegel.""'
On
this
reading,
Richter's
paintings
are
"negatives": negatives
of
paintings,
negatives
of
photographs.
t
is this
position
that want to defend.
Richter'spaintingsstand to the history f paintingas enactmentsof a
double
negation
n which
he
second
negation
the
negation
of
photography y
photo-painting)
matches and reinforces he first
the
negation
of
painting
by
photography)
without ither
being superseded.
It is
a kind of stalemate that
points
beyond
itself
nly
negatively,
n
the form
of
a
hope:
the
hope, perhaps,
for a labor
beyond
the
alienationof
craft,
onception,
nd
technology.
Richter
may,
ike
others,
paint
after the
purported
end of
painting,
n
the self-con-
10. Theodor W.
Adorno,
Negative
ialectics,
rans.E. B.
Ashton
London:
Routledge
and
Kegan
Paul, 1973), p.
160.
See
Hegel's
claim that
"reality
tself
s
only
n
so far as it
is still
onfronted
ya
being
which
it
has
not
sublated,"
in
Hegel's
Science
of Logic
(1812;
1831),
trans.A. V. Miller
(London:
Allen
and
Unwin,
1969),
p.
113.
Gerhard
Richter.
Skull. 1983.
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110
OCTOBER
sciousness
of that
purported
end,
but
he
does
not
thereby egin
painting
new
so much as
keep
t alive n the
steady,
uncertain tate that t has
gotten
nto,
by
exploring
the state
within
painting
tself.
n
painting
he
negation
of
painting,
however,
Richter annot
but
paint
enact)
another
negation
s
well: the
negation
of that
negation
by
painting.
His
pictures
are thus double
negatives,
cts of
negation
n
which,
s
Hegel
puts
it,
"posited
as
affirmative,"
egation
becomes
determinate."
If Richter's
paintings
re
philosophical xplorations
n
paint
of
the state
of
contemporary ainting,
hen
they
do
not so much transcendthis
state as
register
t,
mmanently,
n
a series
of diverse and innovative
ways.
t
is
from this stance-at
least
up
until the late
1970s,
when there
is a
definite
change in the balance of Richter'swork-that the paintings acquire their
strangely
istanced
melancholy uality.
Furthermore,
he
gray
paintings
nd
constructive
works,
would
suggest,
tand
in
the same
relation to
other,
elf-
negating
episodes
in the
history
f
painting
as
the
photo-paintings
tand
to
photography.)
Richter's
paintings
mark
time,
he historical
ime of their
production,
he
time
of the crisis
of
painting,
and
they
mark
time with
paint.
Reflectively
exploring
he sources
and dimensions
f this risis
hrough
heir cts
of
painterly
appropriation,
they
cannot
but contest
t,
even as
they
confirm
t;
cannot
but
confirm
t
n the
very
ct of their
ontestation.
et this s
not to
say
that
Richter,
through unning,merelypostponesa predeterminednd topainting."Rather,
it is the
interpretation
f
negation
as an end
(finis)
hat
the
paintings
ontest.
"What is
negated
is
negative
until t has
passed."
What,
then,
s the status
of
this
negative
painting,
his
painting
hat
keeps
painting
live,
marking
ime;
this
painting
that,
s Germer
puts
it,
however
much
it
may
seem
to
begin painting
anew,
"can
only
take
place
on an individual
basis and
in a
purely
ntellectual
sense"?'3
What
is
the
force of these
qualifications?
t
is
at this
point
that
it
becomes
necessary
o
return o
the
question
of the
readymade.
Postconceptualainting
The effect
f the
readymade
on the
concept
of art
cannot be
denied. "For
more than
thirty-five
ears,
what
has been
most
significant
n modern art
has
worked at
the
interpretation
f the
readymade's
resonance,
ometimes
hrough
compulsive
repetition,
ometimes
through
violent
denial,
but also sometimes
through
a
meaningful
rethinking
f
it,
and
in
any
case,
always through
a
recognition
even
if
only
an
implicit
ne)."'4
It is
harder,
however,
o
specify
the
precise
modality
of this effect
n
different
laces
at
different
imes,
and
11.
Ibid.
12. Germer, RetrospectiveAhead," p. 24.
13.
Ibid.,
p.
25.
14.
Thierry
de
Duve,
Pictorial
ominalism:
n
Marcel
Duchamp's
assage
rom
ainting
othe
Ready-
made
1984),
trans.
Dana
Polan
(Minneapolis:
University
f Minnesota
Press,
1991),
p.
188.
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PaintingNegation:
Gerhard ichter's
egatives
111
especially
with
regard
to
painting.
As de Duve has
brilliantly
hown,
the
effect
of the
readymade
on the
concept
of
painting
wasthe ntroduction f a
profound
undecidability.
n
"naming
as
a
possible
painting thing
that t s
impossible
to
name a
painting,"
he
readymade
seemed to
break the bond
that tied
the
name
of
painting
to the
history
f its
craft,
rendering
t
radically
undecidable.'5
It
would be a
mistake,
however,
to conflate
the
undecidability
produced
by
a
particular
rt within
particular
historical
onjuncture
withthe
logically
onsti-
tutive
undecidability
f the
idea of a
pure
nomination-however
closely
the
two
may
be
linked
in
the
conjuncture
n
question.
For
while
the
readymade
may
"speak
of
the
conditionsforthe
survival f
painting
n
a
society
hat
renders
its
craft
mpossible" (namely,that it sever its links withthe craftcompletely)
while
simultaneously
egistering
he
mpossibility
f
any
such
survival
since
the
name
painting
would
"no
longer designate
anything
but
the
exhaustion
of its
own
naming"),16
the
undecidability
hat
it
thereby
ntroduces nto
the
name
painting
s
not left
unaffected
by
the
act of
its
introduction.
The
readymade
workson
the conditions
hat t
both
establishes
nd
articulates.As
such,
despite
all
appearances
(indeed,
despite
its own
explicit
logic),
it
does
not,
in
fact,
demonstrate
the
impossibility
f
painting-or
even its
absolute
undecidability
-so
much as
serve to
delimit
ts
possibilities,
y
negation.
By
carrying
he
logic
of
the
painterly
vant-garde
the
successive
bandonment of
craft-specific
on-
ventions) to its absurd conclusion (the abandonment of all conventionsand
hence
the
establishment
f an
absolute
conventionality
f
pure
nomination),
it
grants
painting,
which t
names
and
does not
name,
an
open-ended reprieve."'7
Painting
s
not
impossible.
Only
the
old
conception
of
painting
s
impossible:
impossible
to
ustify.
Nor is its
signifier
ndecidable,
except
in
the
vacuum
of a
purely
logical space,
outside
of
history.
Rather,
t is
the
undecidability
f the
readymade
that
establishes
the
terrain
f the
decidability
f
painting by
estab-
lishing
a
divide
(an
ontological
divide)
between
painting
before
and
after
the
readymade.
Henceforth,
ll
paintingworthy
f
the
name
will
have to
legitimate
itself
conceptually
s art
over,
above,
and
beyond
the
continuity
f
its
relation
to the history f itscraftby incorporating consciousnessof the crisisof that
history
nto its
modes
of
signification,
nto
its
strategic
eployment
of
craft.
All
painting
that
aspires
to art
must
be
postconceptual.
t is
within
he
terms f
this
idea of
postconceptual
painting
that
Richter's
strategy
f
double
negation
is to
be
understood
and
judged.
Photo-painting
s
one
way
of
painting
after
the
readymade
that
incorpo-
rates
a
consciousness
of the
crisis
of
painting
nto
its
constitutive
rocedures-
procedures
which,
while
they may
be tied
to
the
history
f
the
craft
through
technique,
derive
both
their
extrinsic
rationale
and
intrinsic
ogic
from
their
15.
Ibid.,
pp.
163,
157.
16.
Ibid.,
pp.
155,
158.
17.
Ibid.,
p.
162.
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112
OCTOBER
critical
eflection n the
concept
f
painting
tself.
f
painting
fter he
readymade
must
reestablish relation to its
craft,
his
s
nonetheless
only
a
condition
for
its tatus s
painting,
ot for ts tatus s art. t is in thedialectic fthese elements
(concept
and
craft),
dialectic
of
proximity
nd
distance
to
painting),
hat the
conundrum of
Richter's
xceptionalism
onnects
up
to the
alleged individuality
and
intellectualism
f
his
project.
Richter's
work,
suggested,
s
exceptional,
not
because it s
displaced
from
he field
f
contemporary
rt,
but
rather
because
of
the
peculiar
way
in
which t
seems
to
distance itselffrom this
field
by
the
very
success
of
its
strategy
f
dealing
with
t. Yet is this
supposed "exception-
alism"
really
nything
ifferent rom
he individualism nd
intellectualismhat
Germer
associates with he
project
of
continuing
o
paint
at
all?
Both the individualism nd
the intellectualism f
contemporary ainting
carry
he
weight
f a
historical ondition. f
the crisis f
painting
s the condition
within
which ll
painting
worth
he name must
ocate
itself,
nd
from
which
no
:i i'
i:s
i
:?i~f:Ck~':l~;~i3CC-~1B~-~B~?
I
r isSi~Q~tfa~II
ntt ,, ? i
ii
I~ re I
E
I:
i-i '.u''
::
iti; ,?.
_1
Gerhard
ichter.
ran
2
(Abstract
Painting).
1989.
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Painting
Negation:
Gerhard
ichter's
egatives
113
painting
worth
the name can
escape
(since
it is a
socially
and
technologically
based crisis n its collective ulturalfunction), his not
only
necessitates hat all
attempts
o
negotiate
this crisisbe individual
n
character,
ut
it also attests o
the
symptomatic
ignificance
f
such
individuality.
ymptomaticndividuality
ur-
passes
itself
when raised to the
power
of a historical
representation,
hrough
interpretation.
et what
I
am
calling
Richter's
xceptionalism
xceeds a
merely
symptomatic onception
of
representative
ndividualism.
or it derives from
he
success of his
particular
rtistic
trategy
double
negation)
a success
that
every-
where
courts a
certain
failure: that
point
at which
the
reestablishment f the
connection to craftwould
negate
the
conceptual
tension
n
whose
service t is
enacted--the restoration fbeauty.
Richter'swork s
exceptional,
historically
xceptional,
n
that t s
produced
at
the
point
of a contradiction hat it
endlessly
and
systematically)
mediates,
that
t
can never
resolve,
but
which,
n
the
self-consciousness f
this
mpossibility,
it is
thereby
ble to
render determinate:
contradiction
etween the end of
painting
s a
living
form f
collective
epresentation
nd its
continuationwithin
the art institution n
the basis of a serial
ingenuity
hat,
symptomatic
n
its
individuality,
arriesthe
weight
f a historical
ondition.
Richter
dopts
a
variety
of
strategies
o
make
painting
ut of the
self-consciousness f this
ontradiction,
and
he
produces
a
variety
f
formsof
painting.
Yet each
derives its
meaning
and its mportancefromthiscommoncondition, nd fromthewayin which t
is
taken
up, replayed,
and
affirmedwithinthe
work,
within
the
very
act of
painting.
Posited
as
affirmative,
egation
becomes
determinate.
The doubt that
lingers
concerns the
extent to which the
latest works
the
abstracts)
maintain
the tension
produced by
such a
double
negativity,
he
moment of
historical
reflexivity,
nd the
extent
to which
this s
annihilatedor
suppressed
in
a
merely
affirmative
elebrationof the
possibilities
f
paint.'8
18. For the beginningsof a critiqueof Richter's bstracts long these lines,emphasizingtheir
vulnerability
o their
conditionsof
reception,
ee the final
ection of
my
"Modernism,
Abstraction
and the
Return to
Painting,"
n
Thinking
rt:
Beyond
raditional
esthetics,
d. Andrew
Benjamin
and
Peter
Osborne
(London:
Institute f
Contemporary
Art,
1991),
p.
70-76.