Cathy's Art Diary

Striking large scale public sculpture at the Serpentine Gallery by Gerhard Richter. The work was inspired by his strip paintings but used large ceramic tiles to create the effects. It consisted of perpendicular sections forming a star shape with different colour combinations in each section. It looked dramatic in Hyde Park with Kensington Palace behind in the distance and I loved the smooth texture of the tiles.    Closed 20 October 2024  

Dull exhibition at the Hayward Gallery of drawings by Gerhard Richter. As you know I sometimes struggle with abstract art and somehow abstract drawings feel even more difficult as they lack expressive colour. I think the show also suffered from having just done the colourful, mainly naturalist works in the Mixing it Up show in the main gallery. The show consisted of 6 sets of drawings show in each case in a line across one wall. The earliest from 2002 painted blocks of black lacquer on photographs and the most recent from earlier this year using graphite on paper. Closes 12 December 2021  

Retrospective of the portrait work of Gerhard Richter at the National Portrait Gallery . I’m sorry to say I did not enjoy this exhibition. Maybe I had already done too much (Picasso and Constable) so my eye was not ready for contemporary art, or maybe it was my middle aged eyes which got a bit confused by the out of focus nature of the work, but I found I could not connect with it. I found myself walking too fast and not concentrating. Reviews Independent Evening Standard