September A History Painting by Gerhard Richter

By Robert Storr

In the book, Storr explores the meaning and controversy behind the painting September 11 by Gerhard Richter. The painting is based around the terror attack on the world trade center on 9/11/01. As a man who witnessed this attack from a distance and new friends and neighbors who had been in the buildings and nearby the buildings on the day of this horrific event he starts by telling his own story, his own feelings, and thoughts from this day. Storr suggests the meaning of Richter’s painting “to render the simple, absolute but always elusive reality of human suffering”.

The American critic and curator Robert Storr has a working relationship with Richter. Storr shows how Richter struggled to express this event in his work, starting with a blank canvas working from photographic images and videos, painting the event quite literally he soon became unhappy with the way that his painting was portraying the event. Contemplating destroying the painting all together he decided to deface it by using his usual abstract technique of dragging the paint across the canvas in different ways, leaving only two visible layers of the painting. After reading this I thought that maybe the layers on the painting could suggest the different effects that this event had on the world, the chaos of the event and then the smoky calm silence following. Or as Storr puts it “a ghost of a ghost”.

This book investigates the true meaning behind the painting and what drove Ritcher to pick such a heated topic. This meaning which does not become clear until after learning the title. I am fascinated with how you can create a piece of work which comes across so calm and muted, to then give it a title and change it to such a highly emotional and impactful piece.

Bibliography:

Storr, R. (2010) September A History Painting by Gerhard Richter. Millbank London. Tate Publishing.