Cage: 6 Paintings by Gerhard Richter

German artist Gerhard Richter was born in Dresden in 1932. He has exhibited at major institutions internationally, including The Museum of Modern Art in New York that awarded him a retrospective, curated by Robert Storr, in 2001, and has represented Germany at the Venice Biennale. He is widely regarded as one of the most important painters at work today, and his works sell for colossal prices at auction. He lives and works in Cologne.

The Cage Paintings were conceived as a single coherent group, and displayed for the first time at the Venice Biennale in 2007. Their titles, Cage (1)-(6), pay homage to the American avant-garde composer John Cage (1912-1992). In his 'Lecture on Nothing', Cage famously declared "I have nothing to say and I'm saying it." Richter is equally suspicious of ideologies and any claim to absolute truth. He shies away from giving psychological interpretations to his paintings, preferring to allow viewers and critics to make up their own minds.

Leading critic Robert Storr considers the importance of The Cage Paintings within Richter's practice and within the wider context of abstract art. A series of extraordinary, detailed photographs document the development of each painting, day by day, and show the artist at work on these monumental canvases, giving unique insight into his working methods.

Robert Storr is Dean of the Yale University School of Art and was formerly a curator at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. He is the author of Gerhard Richter: 40 Years of Painting and Modern Art Despite Modernism, among many other publications.