Gerhard Richter: The German painter's exhibition at the Louis Vuitton Foundation — Last days

Following on from David Hockney's flashy, overflowing landscapes, the Fondation Louis Vuitton takes on one of the giants of contemporary art, Gerhard Richter, in an XXL retrospective. The German painter, born in Dresden in 1932, puts down his brushes - or rather his scrapers - in the 16th arrondissement of Paris for a total exhibition, covering 60 years of effervescent creation.

From photographic blur to the purest abstraction, from brushstrokes to experiments on glass, Richter blurs tracks and genres with disconcerting ease. Between figuration and abstraction, each work is a visual enigma, skilfully composed - Richter never paints what he sees, but what he chooses to show. And that's what it's all about: making us see differently.

From October 17, 2025 to March 2, 2026, 270 works of art will be on display throughout the Fondation. Oil paintings, watercolors, drawings, steel and glass sculptures, overpainted photographs... a kaleidoscope of visual experiences, from 1962 to 2024. A first, both in terms of density and temporality!

We enter the heart of the matter with Galerie 1 (1962-1970), where photography serves as a filter and springboard. Onkel Rudi, Aunt Marianne, the Bombers... behind the apparent neutrality, Richter evokes his own history, and that of a country. A first turning point, too, with the Four Glass Panels and the Color Charts, in which the image sways, decomposes and reflects.

In Galerie 2 (1971-1975), things flow... literally! Vermalungen, Peintures Grises, masterful dissolutions. Special mention should be made of the 48 Portraits from the 1972 Venice Biennale, or this Annunciation by Titian revisited in Richter's style: deconstructed classicism, pigmented with irony.

Galerie 4 (1976-1986) marks the entry intoabstraction. Here, we scrutinize the material, zoom in on the gesture. The brush becomes subject with Strich, while Richter does not forget the intimate, with portraits of his daughter Betty, or reinvented landscapes and still lifes.

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Galerie 5 (1987-1995) sets a course for darkness. German history catches up with the poignant series October 18, 1977, on loan from MoMA. Here, Richter achieves a raw, almost painful intensity. In the same vein, he returned to his early family models with Sabine mit Kind, signing deep, tormented abstractions.

Galleries 7 and 9 (1996-2009) give pride of place to chance. From small formats to large-scale frescoes, everything is on display: Silikat, 4900 Colors, and the sublime Cage Paintings, nuanced tributes to composer John Cage.

Then come Galleries 9 and 10 (2009-2023) for a final salvo of surprises: works on glass, digitally-generated Strip Paintings, and Birkenau, a striking series born of photographs taken in a Nazi camp. Sleek, frontal, essential.

Sculpture permeates the entire exhibition. Finally, three rooms dedicated to watercolors, drawings and overpainted photos offer a sensitive counterpoint, where paper, ink and transparency hint at the visual obsessions that, for Richter, are always in motion even since he put down his brushes in 2017.

Gerhard Richter paints, scratches, blurs, cuts, polishes, reflects - literally and metaphorically. A masterful exhibition that captures the image and its reflection, form and its erasure.