Gerhard Richter - Painting

Directed by: Corinna Belz

Germany | 97 minutes | Unrated

One of the world's greatest living painters, the German artist Gerhard Richter has spent over half a century experimenting with a tremendous range of techniques and ideas, addressing historical crises and mass media representation alongside explorations of chance procedures. Gerhard Richter Painting is a thrilling document of Richter's creative process, juxtaposed with intimate conversations and rare archive material. From our fly-on-the-wall perspective, we watch the 79-year-old create a series of large-scale abstract canvasses, using fat brushes and a massive squeegee to apply (and then scrape off) layer after layer of brightly colored paint. This mesmerizing footage, of a highly charged process of creation and destruction, turns Corinna Belz's portrait of an artist into a work of art itself.