The Drawing Center announces Gerhard Richter: “Lines which do not exist”, a new iteration of an exhibition first presented at mima, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, UK, in 2009. Featuring a selection of 50 abstract graphite, watercolor, and ink on paper drawings made from 1966 to 2005, Gerhard Richter: “Lines which do not exist” will be on view in The Drawing Center’s Main Gallery from September 11–November 18, 2010. While Gerhard Richter’s painting has enjoyed critical acclaim throughout the world, his drawing practice remains more opaque and enigmatic. This exhibition will bring together Richter’s works on paper for the first time in the United States to explore his complex relationship to drawing by highlighting the asymptotic path between drawing and his work in other mediums, and charting his independent and often inconclusive investigations into representation and perception. The installation will consist of constellations of drawings arranged on shelves irrespective of chronology or technique, material, or scale. Suggesting something more open, adjustable, or even unstable, the exhibition design will allow previously unexplored connections to emerge between Richter’s landscape, mechanical, schematic, abstract, and autographic drawings.

This exhibition is curated by Gavin Delahunty, Curator, mima, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, UK.

ABOUT THE ARTIST Gerhard Richter was born in 1932 in Dresden, Germany. Between 1952 and 1957, he studied art at the Kunstakademie, Dresden. The artist then moved to Düsseldorf, where he worked as a photo-laboratory technician before enrolling at the Staatliche Kunstakademie Düsseldorf under Karl Otto Götz from 1961 to 1964. He introduced his hybrid photo-painting style in his first exhibition in Düsseldorf in 1963 when he used his own photographs of landscapes, portraits, and still-lifes as source material and then deliberately “blurred” the depicted subjects or objects in the painting to differentiate the generative source material from the act of paining. Celebrated throughout the world, Richter’s work has been the subject of numerous exhibitions including: the Venice Biennale (1972), Documenta, Kassel (1972, 1977, 1982, 1987, 1992, 1997), Kunsthalle Bremen (1976), Stedlijk Van Abbemuseum (1978), Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco (1989), Tate Gallery in London (1991), Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid (1994), Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin (1997), Astrup Fearnley Museet for Moderne Kunst in Oslo (1999), Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin (2002), Museum of Modern Art in New York (2002), Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. (2003), Kunst Museum Bonn (2004), National Museum of China in Beijing (2008), and National Portrait Gallery in London (2009). He has been the recipient of numerous prizes including the Arnold-Bode-Preis at Documenta 7 (1982), Oskar Kokoschka Prize in Vienna (1985), Wolf Prize from the Wolf Foundation in Israel (1994), and Praemium Imperiale in Japan (1997). Richter currently lives and works in Cologne.

ABOUT THE CURATOR Gavin Delahunty (b. 1977, Ireland) completed his undergraduate studies at Crawford College of Art & Design before earning an MA in Visual Arts Practices (Criticism) at IADT, Dublin. Currently Curator at mima, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, Gavin leads mima’s Drawing Collection, in consultation with The Drawing Center, focusing on postwar drawing from the Americas. Recent acquisitions for the collection include works by Robert Breer, Robert Gober, Michael Heizer, Adrian Piper, Paul Sharits, Robert Smithson, Al Taylor, and Kara Walker. Recent curatorial projects include A certain distance, endless light: A project by Felix Gonzalez-Torres and William McKeown (2010), Ellsworth Kelly: Drawings: 1954–62 (2009), and Katy Moran: Paintings (2008). His exhibition Gerhard Richter: Modern Times won ‘Best Event 2009’ at the prestigious Journal Culture Awards. His monographic exhibition Bonnie Camplin: Railway Mania opened in July 2010 at mima.

PUBLIC PROGRAMS Saturday, September 11, 3:00pm Walk-through with exhibition curator Gavin Delahunty

Saturday, October 16, 2:00pm Walk-through with Executive Director Brett Littman

PUBLICATION To accompany the exhibition, The Drawing Center will produce a 120-page publication, featuring new scholarship on Richter’s drawing practice by Gavin Delahunty, and a foreword by Brett Littman, Executive Director of The Drawing Center, and Kate Brindley, Director of mima, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art. The publication will include approximately 50 color reproductions of works from the exhibition. Available in September 2010.