GRIMM is proud to announce the third solo exhibition by Daniel Richter with the gallery in Amsterdam. The opening of the exhibition coïncides with the Amsterdam Art Weekend.

In these new works, figuration has been fragmented and distilled to a minimum. Sharp lines depict the contours of body parts, strengthened by vivid, vibrant hues that create a suggestion of movement. The interplay of the strong silhouettes and the subtle gradation of color in the back- ground balances between abstraction and figuration. In this way Richter’s paintings liberate in their openness to interpretation. Undercurrents of violence, isolation, awkwardness and oppression abound, while absurdity, surrealism, confusion and the pure attractiveness of colors and shapes lend the works a ludic quality.

The works exhibited in Music for Orgies are a continuation Richter’s radical departure from his style of the last decade: “I wanted to get away from a certain kind of narration and from the theatre stage and from the burden of already knowing what I’m about to do”, Richter stated last year. “When I started in the 90s, I was mainly interested in the idea of how chaotic or crammed a painting can be: To the point that it collapses. And then I also all the time had an interest in doing something that I would call image-related. Image in relation to ideology and the production of ideology and clichés.”

In the new paintings the figures and forms are more defined and explicit. Pornographic imagery is a source and a blue- print for Richter to explore energy, movement, surface and color. He is interested in the information layer an image can provide and by the way that this is done in relation to the pictorial layer. Richter researches how these two merge and together create the aesthetic “Mehrwert” as he calls it, or aesthetic surplus in English.

Daniel Richter (b.1962, Eutin, Germany) is one of the most important German artists of his generation. He was trained at the Hochschule der Bildenden Künste, Hamburg and is now based in Berlin. From 2004 to 2006 he was Professor of Painting at Universität der Künste in Berlin. Since 2006, Richter has held a professorship at Akademie der bildenden Künste in Vienna.

Richter’s works can be found in collections including the Kunstmuseum, Bonn; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Kunsthalle zu Kiel; Gemeentemuseum, The Hague; Hamburger Kunstahlle; Museum der Bildenden Künste, Leipzig; Olbricht Collection; Hort Family Collection; and many other international private collections. He has had solo exhibitions at among others Camden Arts Centre, London (2017), 21er Haus, Vienna (2017), Louisiana Museum, Humlebaek (2016); Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt (2015), kestnergesellschaft, Hanover (2011), Museum der Moderne: Rupertinum, Salzburg (2010), Essl Museum of Contemporary Art, Klosterneuberg, Austria (2009), Ham- burger Kunsthalle, Hamburg (2007), Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Málaga, Spain (2007), Denver Art Museum, Colorado (2007), and Kunstmuseum Basel – Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Switzerland (2006).