In the third part of the lecture series co-organized by S.M.A.K. and Herbert Foundation, Benjamin H.D. Buchloh (Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Modern Art at Harvard University) will discuss some of Gerhard Richter’s more recent glassworks, culminating in 7 Panes of Glass (House of Cards) (2013), which is currently on view in the exhibition About Painting at S.M.A.K. The lecture will position these works in three different perspectives.
The first one, is Richter’s acknowledged and at times unconscious recitation of specific tropes from the cult of glass in the architecture of Weimar Germany, from Bruno Taut to Mies van der Rohe.
The second perspective will focus on Richter’s important acquaintance and later friendship (through Isa Genzken) in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s with Dan Graham and his work, culminating in the discussion of glass as a sculptural or architectural medium in the present. These critical reflections found one of their highlights in the essay by Jeff Wall, ‘Dan Graham’s Kammerspiel,’ which was first published in 1985, in an Australian catalogue and as a book by Herman Daled in French translation, and became a central text for the discussion of sculptural and architectural ambitions in the era of late Conceptualist practices.
The third set of questions will sketch a comparison between Richard Serra’s House of Cards (1966) and Gerhard Richter’s work which – according to the artist – unintentionally received the same title. Nevertheless, Richter has emphasized in various conversations, to what extent, especially the later work of Serra was an important dialogic turning point, especially for his work on the glass sculptures.
And it is an elaboration of these parallels and oppositions that will conclude the lecture’s attempt to situate Richter within a complex reflection of architecture and public space in the period after the conclusion of the historical optimism of the phenomenology of Minimalist sculpture.
Practical information
- Tuesday 23 january 2018 - 8 pm.
- Price: museum ticket.
- Subscribe: reservation@smak.be.
- The museum stays open until 9 pm.
