Daniel Richter: Limbo

Richter's colorful, epic paintings in dialogue with 17th-century works at a Venetian palazzo

Published for a unique exhibition at the historic Venetian palazzo Scuola Grande di San Fantin, this clothbound catalog showcases large-scale oil paintings by German artist Daniel Richter (born 1962). Installation shots display the unique display of Richter's intensely colorful paintings, interwoven with the palazzo's 17th-century works. The combination highlights the punk ethos of the artist in full force. Richter studied with German modernist painter Werner Buettner at the Hochschule fuer bildende Kuenste in Hamburg until 1994. Since then, his work has moved through several phases. His early paintings challenged the abstract canon of German postwar painting with an exuberant, psychedelic formal language. No less radical are Richter's monumental paintings begun after 2000, through which he used painterly allegories to subvert figurative history painting.