James Lingwood

This catalogue is in addition to the exhibition at de MoMa on the paintings of the lives and deaths of the Baader-Meinhof group. The late 1960s, the Baader-Meinhof group had become Germany's most feared terrorists. Although the prisoners' deaths were pronounced suicides, the authorities were suspected of murder.

The fifteen works in October 18, 1977 evoke fragments from the lives and deaths of the Baader-Meinhof group. Richter has worked in a range of styles over the years, including show more painterly and geometric abstraction as well as varieties of realism based on photography; the slurred and murky motifs of this work derive from newspaper and police photographs or television images. Shades of gray dominate, the absence of color conveying the way these second-hand images from the mass media sublimate their own emotional content. An almost cinematic repetition gives an impression, as if in slow motion, of the tragedy's inexorable unfolding. Produced during a prosperous, politically conservative era eleven years after the events, and insisting that this painful and controversial subject be remembered, these paintings are widely regarded as among the most challenging works of Richter's career. show less

Amazing sculptures of miniature clothing, miniature ceramics, miniature furniture & buttons made of human bone. What? This is a labour of love... and obsession. The ironic part is he has a work made of ivory (which made me raise my eyebrows of course) - and it is the form of a human ring finger. Ha! What I wouldn't give to see this guy's stuff in person.

shelved at: B70:SCH