Regina Mamou, artist and lecturer, will explore the relationship between photography and painting in Gerhard Richter's work in anticipation of the forthcoming exhibition Gerhard Richter: Painting After All at MOCA, Los Angeles.

From the birth of the first photograph in 1826, photography struggled to gain recognition in the art world. The camera was a means to an end to document, not as an art form in its own right. After WWII, however, the postwar years brought about another debate aimed at the photographic medium – that is to say, how to depict a world that had witnessed great atrocities. In one way, both photography and painting struggled to make sense of this new world order, and in another way, painting no longer portrayed reality as it moved toward abstraction. This push-and-pull relationship between these two mediums is at the heart of Gerhard Richter's work. This talk will tackle this complicated debate and Richter's struggle to make sense of an unprecedented time in 20th-century history. We will view a wide range of Richter's paintings and source photographs from the forthcoming exhibition to open at MOCA, Los Angeles, this fall.

Image: Gerhart Richter, Vesuvius, Oil on Wood, 1976