Flow (P5)

A combination of large, fluid strokes and intricate detail, this work is one of Richter’s most successful experimentations with diluted oil paints. Striking for its difference from prints in the Cage Prints, Cage f.ff and Cage Grid series, which all reference paintings that have been completed with the use of large, home-made squeegees, Flow (P5) shows Richter at his most spontaneous. Floating different hues of paint over the top of a horizontal surface, Richter allows his materials to interact as they wish, independent of his hand. Towards the top of this image, the chemical nature of oil paint comes to the fore, with the fluid dynamics - and mechanics - of these materials giving the work a sense of independent motion.

As an East German student at the Dresden Academy, Richter was only able to visit West Berlin twice a year. There, the artist was shocked by the vibrant visual and artistic cultures that existed outside of the Soviet sphere of influence; films and exhibitions, such as the famous The Family of Man exhibition organised by Edward Steichen of New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), were world-changing for the artist. The photographic basis of this particular exhibition had a profound impact on a young Richter, who before then ‘knew only paintings’. Here, Richter departs from his keen emphasis on process and the technological, leaving everything up to  error and serendipity: to chance.