Considered perhaps the best living painter, it is a privilege to watch Gerhard Richter paint. And a lot of Corinna Belz's documentary is spent with the camera quietly hovering over Richter's shoulder, as he works on a series of paintings which, with each pull of colour across the canvas, grow and change before our very eyes. Paintbrushes are almost secondary for this current work; instead, Richter uses a plexiglass plank the same width of the canvas. His assistants have rigged the plank with handles so that Richter is able to drag it over the length of the canvas. The changes are often extreme. And breathtaking. Depending on the pressure of his grip, and whether paint is being added or subtracted, the paint either grows or pulls away, revealing a new painting with each "stroke". It is magic.
We also get to see the other workings of his studio: his assistants preparing the paint; the to-scale models for the arrangement of paintings in his upcoming shows; a visit from Marian Goodman his New York dealer. And we get the sense of what it must be like to be there. Pristine white walls and concrete floors contrast with the sounds of birds chirping in the gardens outside.
However, to watch a great artist at work here is not just a privilege. It is also torture. With a single drag of the plexiglass a beautiful pattern of colour is lost forever. Or revealed. You never know how the next stroke is going to result. The only thing keeping you from yelling Stop! is the knowledge that Richter already feels this doubt.
"I don't know what to do next," he says to the director behind the camera. "It's not working." The blue paint was an error, he claims. "It was an overblown idea." He pauses. "At the moment it seems hopeless. I don't think I can do this: painting under observation... It is the worst thing that there is." To see a master lose confidence is unsettling. The camera's presence comes to represent the artist's greatest enemy: his capacity for self-criticism, for being overly self-conscious, and their crippling effects. Gerhard Richter - Painting shows us the artist's daily battle between creation and self-doubt. And surprisingly that struggle - probably because it is portrayed so honestly - becomes our inspiration.
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