Abstrakes Bild https://www.

gerhard-
Abstract Painting richter.com/en/art/paintings/abstracts/abstracts-

CONTEMPORARY ART 1989. 19851989-30/abstract-painting-6671.

GERHARD RICHTER

Key Information:
The Institute of Contemporary Art in London, founded in
1947, champions art from that year onwards. Whereas
The New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York
chooses the later date of 1977. In the 1980s, Tate
planned a Museum of Contemporary Art in which
contemporary art was defined as art of the past ten
years on a rolling basis.
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/c/contemporary-art.

The other common themes in his work are the elements of

chance, and the play between realism and abstraction.
Working alongside but never fully embracing a quick
succession of late twentieth century art movements, such
as Abstract Expressionism, American/British Pop
art, Minimalism, and Conceptualism, Richter has absorbed
many of their ideas while remaining sceptical of all grand artistic and philosophical credos.

Richter borrows much of his painted imagery from newspapers, or even his own family albums. Often he
begins by mechanically projecting such an image onto the canvas, a technique for thinking about how
images often seem to have a life of their own, like mysterious ghosts haunting our psyche. This act of
visual compression, in which photography, projection, and painting merge to make a finished art work,
suggests that all vision is a kind of conversion of the "real" into the "imaginary."

Richter would often blur his subjects and embrace chance effects in his own painting process in order to
show the impossibility of any artist conveying the full truth of a subject in its original condition. Such
means for suggesting that something essential to the model has been "lost in translation" often leads a
viewer's attention to the oil pigment's dense, material nature, thereby demonstrating both its expressive
strengths and shortcomings.

http://www.theartstory.org/artist-richter-gerhard.htm.

Main Features
- Contemporary art was defined as art of the past ten years on a rolling basis and founded
in 1947

- The common themes in his work were the elements of chance and play between realism
and abstraction
- Most of his images are borrowed from newspapers or family albums

- Gerhard Richters work always started of as a canvas type then developed with a
technique

- All images would often be blurred to enhance the effects and to show the true meaning
to the subject
 A, B Courbet 1986.

https://www.gerhard-
richter.com/en/art/paintings/abstracts/abstra
cts-19851989-30/a-b-courbet-7555/?p=4.

Key Information:
A majestic panorama of richly variegated paint cresting
across a vast canvas, A.B. Courbet comprises the
epitome of Gerhard Richters astoundingly powerful art of
abstraction. Simultaneously concealing and revealing
spectacular accents of red, yellow and blue primaries, a
sublime veil of lusciously viscous oil paint flows laterally
across the canvas like a tide coursing across the
geological strata of a cliff face. This painting sits at the
chronological head of the period when the artists creation of monumental essays in abstraction reached new heights
and the long, hard-edged spatula squeegee became the central instrument of his technical practice.

In its phenomenal scale and sheer, uncontestable quality, A.B. Courbet ranks in the very finest achievements of
Richters abstract output.
Although the title Abstraktes Bild, indicated here by the initials A.B., is typically translated as 'Abstract Painting', the
curator Robert Storr restores the meaning of Bild as 'picture', implying something beyond mere painting, as this
"reinforces the impression...of shoals, riptides, and cresting waves amid the paintings' scraped and layered
pigments." (In Dietmar Elger, Gerhard Richter: A Life in Painting, Cologne 2002, p. XIII) Here tracts of colour are
dragged across the canvas using the squeegee, so that the various strains of malleable, semi-liquid pigment
suspended in oil are fused together and smudged first into the canvas, and then layered on top of each other as the
paint strata accumulate.

Texture, colour and structure are deployed in Abstraktes Bild with spectacular force and sensitivity to engender a
seductive painterly synthesis visually aligned to an exquisite and strikingly atmospheric evocation: structural strips
and impastoed ridges of thick oil paint delineate a schema of painterly revelations and under layers of diaphanous
blue, green and purple that are punctuated with sunset flashes of yellow, orange, red and pink. Herein, the present
work draws a uniquely evocative dialogue with late nineteenth-century landscape painting from a distinctly
contemporary perspective. Invoking an utterly self-referential language of abstraction, Abstraktes Bild nonetheless
shares aesthetic and atmospheric congruencies with Monets late Nympheas, Gustav Klimts jewel-like treatment of
the Austrian landscape, and Seurats proto-scientific treatment of light and colour. Indeed, Richters breath
taking Abstraktes Bild captures an atmosphere akin to a post-impressionistic translation of landscape scenery.
However, Richter has frequently spoken of aspects of his work as cuckoos eggs in that his paintings are often
mistaken for something they are not, or not fully. Where this most aptly applies to the artists take on the sublime
landscape, it is also at stake within his response to both an evocation of an Impressionist landscape and the sublime
abstraction of the Twentieth Centurys great American painters.

http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2013/nov-2013-contemporary-evening-n09037/lot.22.html.

Main Features

- Texture and colour and enhanced in this image to express a strong look

- Primary colours such as red, yellow and blue are spread across the canvas to create a
tide effect

- This image was one of Gerhards finest achievements as an abstract output

- This image reinforces the impression of scraped and layered pigments

- The paint is spread across the canvas using the smudge technique so that the strains of
malleable, semi liquid pigment and oil are fused together then layered on top.
 ARNALDO ROCHE RABELL

Think Under Water 2013. http://www.mapr.org/en/museum/proa/artist

/roche-rabell-arnaldo.

Key Information:
Painter. Roche Rabell began his artistic training at the Luchetti School of Art in Santurce, where he
studied under Lope Max Daz. He later studied architecture at the University of Puerto Rico and art at
the Art Institute of Chicago, where he completed his MFA in 1984. Since then, he has devoted himself
entirely to painting. His work is found in important collections around the world, and he has taken part in
several international events, earning numerous awards and great critical recognition. He has developed
a unique style based on the application of layers of bright colours, which he covers with black and then
rubs with a pallete knife to create dramatic and revealing images. Many of his paintings use live models,
whom he wraps in raw canvas and then, using frottage, imprints on it the contours of their bodies.
Usually of monumental size, exuberant in colour, and dramatic in their content, his Abstract
Expressionist paintings draw upon a variety of references, both historical and personal.

Roche Rabells work is one of strong psychological content, in which he undertakes topics related to
man and his nature. The artist mostly works portraits, self-portraits and landscape compositions in
heroic sizes. The colour and multiple textures achieved through the use of techniques such as frottage
and impastos, as well as the use of other resources such as writing, result in a proposition strongly
expressive and of great intensity.
http://www.mapr.org/en/museum/proa/artist/roche-rabell-arnaldo.

Main Features
-Arnaldos work can be found in important collections around the world, this implies that he was a well-
known man of hard work
- He has developed a styled based upon layers of bright colours, which he covers with different coloured
paint and then using a pallete knife to create a dramatic effect
- Most of his paintings were live models, then wrapped in canvas to imprint their bodies
- Most of his paintings were references from historical and personal events
- The majority of his works were portraits, self-portraits and landscape compositions in different sizes
- Techniques such as frottage and impastos were used to create the colours and texture of his Arnaldos
work.
 Beyond The Canvas: https://www.walterotero.com/?lightbox=dataItem-
Contemporary Art From Puerto Rico j16nk7iw.
April 2017

Key Information:

Arnaldo Roche Rabell creates large-scale works using the rubbing technique of frottage. He places
persons, objects, and vegetation under the canvas and builds his images through multiple layers of
paint. Roche Rabell studied architecture at the Universidad de Puerto Rico and holds a BFA and MFA
from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His work has been exhibited at the Art Institute of
Chicago, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., and New Yorks
Metropolitan Museum of Art and Museum of Modern Art, among others.
https://newcombartmuseum.tulane.edu/portfolio-item/beyond-the-canvas/.

Arnaldo Roche-Rabell is a Puerto Rican visual artist who was born in 1955. Arnaldo Roche-Rabell has had
numerous gallery and museum exhibitions, including at the Newcomb Art Gallery of Tulane and at the Latin
American Masters. Many works by the artist have been sold at auction, including 'The Pursuit of Happiness' sold
at Phillips New York 'Contemporary Art Day' in 2013 for $197,000. There have been many articles about Arnaldo
Roche-Rabell, including 'Art Review; Art That Escapes The Tyranny Of 'Isms'' written by Benjamin Genocchio for
New York Times in 2005.
https://www.mutualart.com/Artist/Arnaldo-Roche-Rabell/1061DB110B79E177/Biography.

The Department of Contemporary art features ionic works of international art from 1945 to the present.
One of the most comprehensive contemporary art collections in any encyclopaedic museum, if comprises
over 1,000 works, encompassing painting, sculpture, installation and new media.

http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/contemporary.

Main Features
- Arnaldos work had been exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago and a few other places in New
York
- One of Arnaldos paintings had been sold at an auction, which was Phillips New York
Contemporary Art Day in 2013.

- Contemporary art features works from 1945

- Contemporary art comprises encompassing painting, sculpture, installation and new media.
ANALYSIS OVERALL
The three art movements I chose were Contemporary Art, Graffiti
Art and Group F/64.
The difference between all is as follows: Contemporary art is
mainly focused around oil and canvas work with techniques such
as smudging, layering and dramatic effects.

Graffiti art is street art and spray paint, which includes all formal
elements such as line, colour, texture and shape. This is my
favourite art movement because in my eyes Graffiti allows you to
express yourself more especially as all graffiti is not the same e.g.
people use different equipment and techniques to process.

The Group F/64 was a photography group with seven members

that began in 1932. They had a different interpretation to
everywhere else as how photography was seen.
Members of this group spilt up in 1940 because a few of them had
different beliefs about how you document photography and make
a difference in the world.
Around this time the economy continued to deteriorate and
unemployment increased further in 1932 to 24.1%.

Graffiti art only began to be classed as artwork in the 1980s.

Around this time there was a decade of the Gregorian calendar
that began on January 1st 1980- December 31st 1989.

Contemporary art started in the 1960s, artist began to turn the

medium of videos to refine fine art. This art is important because
the detention of Contemporary means when two or more events
are closer in time together.
Around this time civil rights protested and dominated by the
Vietnam War.