point and shoot.

Gerhard Richter: Portraits

Gerhard Richter: Portraits
National Gallery, London
27 February - 31st May 2009

Razor sharp focus. It’s a prerequisite of the photography industry. The images that surround us offer the eye the illusion of every detail. For this reason viewing Gerhard Richter’s Portraits at the National Portrait Gallery challenges the eye.

The hallmark of Richter’s portraits are paintings that subordinate the photographic image for very different ends. The canvases offer the shapes of figures which on closer inspection break up into flat layers of paint. Richter’s most striking technique, which is in evidence throughout this retrospective, is to rake a brush across the damp canvas smudging the tones together. The result gives an appearance of automatism to his images; As if they had been produced by a period photocopier or printer. These surfaces are Richter’s tool to inhibit the viewer’s attempt at interpretation. From a photograph we expect a copy of reality. However, here the viewer is required to consider a number of visual contradictions: paintings that appear to be photos, figures that remain illusive, canvases that have the appearance of mass produced objects.

The exhibition contains further illuminating contrasts in Richter’s work. The atrium of the gallery is filled with Richter’s monumental 48 Portraits a work which dryly offers us a canon of great white males looking down on the viewer. Take the elevator to the upper galleries and you rise up through the ranks. However, the prevalent subject matter here is not the iconic image but the family portrait. This is an object that he describes as a modern ‘devotional picture.’ With these images Richter offers the viewer a chance to glimpse into personal relationships while emphasizing their conceal realities. Richter portrays his daughters in a way that both captures personality and side steps it by hiding the subject’s face of using an unusual angle. In a small self-portrait Richter appears to be emerging from deep inside the picture. Coming into focus, but looking away from the camera as if to resist its gaze.

The final surprise is Richter’s installation of a mirror in the gallery as the exhibition’s final work. Richter compares the mirror to one of his paintings, suggesting that it offers a semblance of the thing without showing us the object itself. Seeing oneself staring into the mirror with the traffic of the gallery behind offers exactly this experience. It reminds me of Velasquez’s Las Meninas; suddenly we’re

Lowlands

I travelled to The Hague and Delft, home of 17th century painter Johannes Vermeer. Vermeer's archetypal image is that of the figure at the window. An interior flooded with cool light. They offer a naturalism pregnant with allegorical possibility.

A girl in servants clothing looks over her shoulder, exposing a pearl earring. The iconic image resides in the Mauritshuis in The Hague, concealing a mystery that rivals the Mona Lisa's smile. It's miniature size and canvas stripped bare of context gives the image the quality of a deftly executed part work. The floating fragment of a unrealised idea.

My travel photos also offer a speculative narrative . I went looking for the quality of Vermeer's light, falling through the curtains, through the blinds. Here are some fragments. I'm putting them together to see if they might suggest a story







images (c) David Foster 2009

The 76

Angry and frustrated by London Transport I aimlessly start snapping from the top deck. The result is immediately captivating.

I had been trying to work out a way of visualising London for ages. And suddenly here it is. Monotonous chaos in the patterns of grey paving stones. Concealed figures. A view combining surveillance and vulnerability. Just photos from my everyday life.

I can already imagine a number of way I can develop such a series of images. I think I will probably start a London blog to accommodate them. I'll post the link when I get it sorted.

Bassaleg School rugby tour 1992

Implausibly I have two rolls of film which I managed to keep about 17 years without developing. I Found them in a box of old film at Christmas. They are photos from a school rugby tour I went on in 1992. (That's me down at the bottom there.)

The effect of keeping them hidden for so long made the final result more exciting than simply looking at old photos. The film stock has aged, darkened round the edges and taken on ghostly tints.

I have decided to take a couple of rolls in the coming weeks on film stock that is likely to age badly. I'll hide them away in the film box and come back to them in 5 or so years. See you in 2015.

Dream Landscapes (2)

19/10/08

rock of ages
read the fall out
in the bar:

travelling on from vienna
'Where do you want to go?'
'To a city with a Cathedral.'

sitting on bar stools
bacon & eggs
translations
kissing together
routemaster through Islington


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8/10/08

I look at them
I thought they were screaming at me

(knock. knock.)

the cyclonic version
'I know'
it gets confused



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9/1/09

Obama on the radio
resigned yesterday.

whatever. whatever. whatever.

warms up when. glue in the bike shop.
need some time. jumpy end.

zip lines. miniature horses.
waves on the coast of Venezuela
the woman carry goods on their shoulders

James in a model village
dad calls it over
loyalty card
smells strangest at my home.

Time remaining: 5min