DRESDEN.- The Gerhard Richter Archive will be presenting the special exhibition “Gerhard Richter. Series | Variations” in the permanent exhibition rooms dedicated to Gerhard Richter at the Albertinum. The works mainly come from the archive’s own holdings, supplemented by selected loans made by Gerhard Richter as trial proofs and variations on his editions, amongst other things.

The special exhibition is devoted to the artist’s creative process, which is strikingly demonstrated in his editions and the preparatory work leading up to them. The artist describes himself as an “image maker”, not a painter. The exhibition documents his working process, from a photograph via an image to an edition.

This reveals the diversity of his artistic work: the trial proofs feature interesting differences and Richter has given some examples a unique character by over-drawing them at a later stage.

The series and variations are different versions of the same thing. Though Gerhard Richter creates them systematically, the results cannot usually be predicted and can vary considerably. The special exhibition documents the process impressively.

While the exhibition is on, a 24-page brochure accompanying it will be given to all visitors free of charge. In it, Hubertus Butin, who compiled the catalogue raisonné of Gerhard Richter’s editions and is an eminent expert in the subject, offers informative insights into the principle behind the technique and the various types of series found in Gerhard Richter’s oeuvre.

The idea for this exhibition came about last year when the friends association MUSEIS SAXONICIS USUI – Freunde der Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen Dresden e. V. – donated the six-part portfolio “Canary Landscapes II” to the Archive as a gift. That edition will also be on display in the special exhibition.

A series of art talks and guided tours will accompany the exhibition.

The Gerhard Richter Archive collection at Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden

When the Gerhard Richter Archive was founded in 2006, there were as yet no plans to acquire printed works or any editions. It was only in 2010 that the archive began to acquire not just catalogues, books, letters, posters, invitations, press reports and ephemera, but also art. At first, these acquisitions concentrated on works with a personal or biographical connection to the artist, such as the 1968 “Atelier” editions or the small self-portrait he created in 1971. Today, the archive aims to build as complete a collection of the artist’s editions as possible. As with his painted works, what stands out above all is Richter’s love of experimentation, the rich variety of his configurations and the fact that he has never been interested in traditional printing techniques such as woodcut or etching. Instead, he works almost exclusively with modern photomechanical processes such as offset printing, screen printing and photography.