Daniel Richter is without a doubt one of the most important German artists of his generation. In the 1990s, he studied at the Hamburg University of Fine Arts with Werner Büttner and worked as an assistant to Albert Oehlen – both representative of the “Junge Wilde” (“Wild Youth”) movement in the 1980s that propagated a return to painting.

Richter started out painting only abstract images. Since the turn of the millennium, however, he has increasingly devoted his attention to figurative subjects. His aesthetic influences and themes are diverse. His paintings often reflect current events, mixing expressive and informative elements. Narrative yet mysterious, his images are at times reminiscent of Edvard Munch or Francis Bacon, yet belong unmistakeably to the here and now. Richter translates contemporary images from the media into compositions full of allegory and charged with a brooding tension. His paintings can be interpreted as tributes to historical paintings that bring the genre into the present while simultaneously deconstructing it.

Much like his monumental paintings, Richter’s lithographs impress with a seamless blend of representation and abstraction. The schematic depiction of the figures and the scene’s tension create a dream-like atmosphere in which ambiguity leaves plenty of room for association.

The thermal aesthetic so often associated with Daniel Richter’s work is particularly prominent in “Kashmir”, in which shadowy human figures in deep red hues – perhaps soldiers armed with guns – cross a landscape. They are outlined in yellow, creating an effect that is reminiscent of images shot with an infrared camera.

It is these dramatic scenes positioned somewhere between dream, myth, and reality that make Richter’s artistic approach so unmistakeable. Loaded with political meaning in their titles and subjects, his images are so diffuse and enigmatic that they defy linear interpretation and instead stimulate the viewers’ imaginations with their ambiguity. His pieces are able to unsettle us, though we cannot rationally understand why. The artist plays with the images the media puts inside our heads; we think we recognize something familiar, but it is distorted and strange – the very definition of “the uncanny” in the Freudian sense.

Daniela Kummle

Solo Exhibitions

2014	Daniel Richter, Galerie im Taxispalais, Innsbruck, Austria
2013	Daniel Richter – Mamillen, Spandrillen, Ronald, Kunstverein Augsburg, Germany
2013	Daniel Richter – 6 Neue Bilder, Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin, Germany
2010	Daniel Richter – Das große Welttheater, Museum der Moderne, Salzburg, Austria
2009	Daniel Richter, Essl Museum, Klosterneuburg, Austria
2008	Die Idealisten, David Zwirner, New York City, USA
2007	Daniel Richter, GEM – Museum for Contemporary Art, The Hague, Netherlands
2007	Daniel Richter, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Germany
2006	Daniel Richter, Museum für Gegenwartskunst – Emanuel Hoffmann Foundation, Basel, Switzerland
2004	Daniel Richter – The Morning After, David Zwirner, New York City, USA
2003	Daniel Richter – Hirn, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Germany
2001	Daniel Richter – Billard um Halbzehn, Kunsthalle zu Kiel, Germany

Group Exhibitions

2014	Unendlicher Spaß, Kunsthalle Schirn, Frankfurt, Germany
2013	Landschaft nach 2000, Kunsthalle Dominikanerkirche, Osnabrück, Germany
2013	Nightfall – New Tendencies in Figurative Painting, Galerie Rudolfinum, Prague, Czech Republic
2012	Galerie Utopia/ The Forgotten Bar Project: The Garden of Eden, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France
2012	Pink Caviar, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark
2012	Artandpress, Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, Germany
2011	HALLELUHWAH! – Hommage à CAN, Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, Germany
2011	Unter Helden – Vor-Bilder in der Gegenwartskunst, Kunsthalle Nürnberg, Nuremberg, Germany
2010	Pop Life: Art in a Material World, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Canada
2009	Pop Life: Art in a Material World, Tate Modern, London, UK
2009	Die Kunst ist super! Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, Germany
2008	Wir nennen es Hamburg – Interdisziplinäres Kunstfestival, Hamburger Kunstverein, Germany
2008	Vertrautes Terrain – Aktuelle Kunst in und über Deutschland, ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany
2008	Konstellationen III, Städel Museum, Frankfurt, Germany
2007	Rockers Island – Olbricht Collection, Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany
2006	Berlin-Tokyo/Tokyo-Berlin, Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, Germany
2006	The Triumph of Painting – Part 4, Saatchi Gallery, London, UK
2004	Aktuelle Malerei – Heisskalt – Sammlung Scharpff, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Germany
2003	Berlin-Moskau/Moskau-Berlin 1950 – 2000, Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, Germany
2000	Tal R und Daniel Richter, Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst, Bremen, Germany
1999	German Open 1999 – Gegenwartskunst in Deutschland, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Germany