The social character of contemporary painting: Buchloh on Richter’s politics

This article considers how Benjamin Buchloh interprets the political significance of paintings by Gerhard Richter. The issue is crucial because Buchloh believes this is where their meaning and value reside. Buchloh sets Richter’s work in two historical contexts: Germany during and after the Second World War, and a history of modernist painting, a process of enlightenment criticism in which the illusions of aesthetics are corrected and new artistic freedoms achieved. A current crisis in critical thinking and practice is the result of world events but also how the very achievements of modernism eventually became problematic, aesthetically and politically. In light of Richter’s October 18, 1977 group, the Strips and Sinbad series, and his sequence ‘family portraits’ it is argued that Buchloh’s interpretation is problematic for both painting and politics. The article concludes by discussing the implications of this version of left cultural critique and the challenges of forming a positive, practical way of interacting with the history of painting.