Gerhard Richter Painting

Germany, 2011 / 97 minutes / Director: Corinna Belz

For the first time, this year TIFF chose to open with a documentary. May be it is not just a co-incidence that for the 10 films I got to see this year, my number 1 choice is also a documentary: “Gerhard Richter Painting.”

Even though this is not an in depth and academic study of Gerhard Richter’s painting, it definitely revealed how he paints his Neo-Expressionism masterpieces!

What an innovative way he paints! He uses “Squeegees” to apply the paint to canvas, to create colors and patterns far beyond anyone’s imaginations!

London’s Tate Modern is having his retrospective exhibition right now. There’s this review I got from Tate’s on Facebook, it is the London Evening Standard’s review (by Ben Luke), and this is the opening sentence: “Talk has been, since the recent passing of Cy Twombly and Lucian Freud, that Gerhard Richter is now the world's greatest living painter, but I would argue that that was true while they were still with us.”

Even though I couldn’t concur that, I love all three of them, but I believe, Gerhard Richter’s achievement opens up new doors for others to keep exploring.