RICHTER, Gerhard - Wald

Background information, contents

"285 photos were selected by Gerhard RICHTER for this book. They are part of an extensive collection of photographs taken from winter 2005/06 in the forest near his house in Cologne-Hahnwald. As texts for the book he uses the essays of the professional journal 'Waldung Magazin für Wald, Wandern, Wissen, Nr. 1/2006'. All words were mixed with the help of a random generator. Afterwards RICHTER removed proper names as well as still too clear text passages. The resulting nonsensical text is still recognizable from the vocabulary as a text about forest. Gerhard RICHTER divided the type area into seven horizontal strips, which he arranged according to a strict concept, but which he undermined by individual interventions. The 106 differently occupied pages fill continuously with text, only to diminish again after the only fully occupied page in the middle. It is a fading in and out of sentence pictures.
Gerhard RICHTER roughly sorted the photographs into groups of fine branches, horizontally lying trunks, diagonally or vertically growing trees, which he distributed with the text pages to form a dramaturgy that gives the book variety and excitement. 'Forest', as an autonomous artist's book, is far more than another panel part of the 'Atlas'. It opens up analogies to the complete works of Gerhard RICHTER." (© Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2008)

About the (photo-)artist, Gerhard RICHTER (b.1932, in Dresden)

(Photo-)books by as well as about the (photographic) work of Gerhard RICHTER