Gerhard Richter in Paris A Life's Work Between Reality and Abstraction

The major retrospective of Gerhard Richter at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in 2026 is far more than just an exhibition—it is a journey through one of the most significant bodies of artistic work of our time. For me personally, Richter embodies contemporary painting like no other: uncompromising, multifaceted, and consistently surprising.

The exhibition, which ran from October 2025 to March 2026, brought together over 270 works spanning more than six decades, offering a nearly comprehensive overview of his body of work. It quickly becomes clear that Richter cannot be pigeonholed into a single style—rather, his work is a constant exploration of the image, reality, and perception.

The enormous range of the works on display is particularly impressive. Delicate watercolors stand alongside monumental squeegee paintings, whose layers of paint were applied to the canvas with powerful strokes. These abstract works appear both controlled and random—a tension that is typical of Richter. Alongside these, visitors encounter his iconic overpainted photographs, in which reality and painting blend into one another, as well as precise photographic images that create a unique sense of distance through their characteristic blurriness.

Thematically, too, the exhibition demonstrates the versatility of Richter’s work. Personal memories, historical events, landscapes, abstract color fields—all coexist on an equal footing. There is no linear narrative; rather, there is an open system of images that challenges the viewer to find their own meanings. For me, this is precisely where his greatness lies: Richter does not provide answers; he asks questions.

The exhibition’s layout reinforces this impression. Across numerous rooms, an artistic biography unfolds, ranging from the early photography-based works of the 1960s to the late, almost meditative drawings. Visitors move not only through rooms, but through ways of thinking, through doubts, and through ever-changing approaches to the image itself.

What remains is the feeling of having encountered an artist who has never confined himself to any one style—and who, for that very reason, ranks among the greatest of our time. For me, this exhibition impressively confirms that Gerhard Richter is not only one of the most important contemporary painters, but perhaps the one who has most radically explored the possibilities of painting.

I, too, have delved deeply into the squeegee technique—inspired by Gerhard Richter’s radical approach—and this has resulted, among other things, in my oil painting Blue Sea in the large format of 140×100 cm. It quickly becomes clear that squeegee painting is not for the frugal. Enormous amounts of oil paint are applied, scraped off, and layered—a process that is as material-intensive as it is unpredictable. For despite all one’s experience, there is always an element of uncertainty: you never know whether the painting will turn out well in the end. But for me, that is precisely the appeal of this technique—in the tension between control and chance, in the courage to take risks, and in the fascination of the unexpected.