Gerhard Richter, “Sinbad,” 98 paintings, enamel on back of glass, 2008 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
FLAG Art Foundation
545 West 25th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves., tenth floor
Wednesday – Saturday 11:00 am – 5:00 pm through May 26
Admission: free
www.flagartfoundation.org
“I blur things to make everything equally important and equally unimportant,” German visual artist Gerhard Richter wrote in 1964–65. “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.” In 2008, the iconoclastic Richter, part Conceptualist, part Realist, began an investigation into One Thousand and One Arabian Nights with his “Sinbad” series (followed in 2010 by “Aladdin”), comprising fifty pairs of diptychs featuring bright, colorful enamel painted, dripped, and smeared onto 30 x 24 cm pieces of glass. The FLAG Art Foundation is currently displaying “98 paintings, 1 room,” forty-nine of these diptychs — one is in disrepair — arranged along a wall in four rows, with one pair off by itself at a right angle to the rest. The abstract works evoke such diverse objects as forensic slides and children’s spin art, appearing to take on different lives depending on how you view them, whether by row, by column, by entire wall, or by individual unit. Each diptych was supposedly put together randomly, but if you look close enough, you can see similarities in their pairings, either by color or shape. Regardless, the bold blues, reds, yellows, and greens are unusual for Richter, much of whose most familiar work is dark and gray. Be sure to look at the gorgeously designed catalog ($200), which includes extreme close-ups that are simply staggering. Indeed, as you make your way through the rows of small paintings, you will see no “unimportant information.” FLAG is also showing a solo exhibition by another German artist, Josephine Meckseper, who has turned the ninth-floor space into a kind of department store; both exhibits run through May 26.