Gerhard Richter: Strip-Tower

Preserved in a small-format paperback, Richter's Strip-Tower is an exercise in three-dimensional abstraction

Since the early 1960s, Gerhard Richter (born 1932) has tirelessly explored the infinite possibilities of painting and gained status as a celebrated artist worldwide. His recent public commission, Strip-Tower (962) (2023), expands on the artist's enduring investigations of painting, photography, digital reproduction and abstraction. Building on his series of Abstract Paintings from the 1970s onward, and Strip Paintings made since 2011, Richter now moves his explorations into three dimensions. He created Strip-Tower using glossy ceramic tiles that clad two perpendicular panels to create a cruciform structure of 12 faces, intended to be viewed in the round. Marcus du Sautoy, Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University, describes the work as a piece of "complexity and simplicity," its vertical stripes hiding a deeper, symmetrical process. The book also features a preface by Serpentine Artistic Director Hans Ulrich Obrist and Chief Executive Bettina Korek.