Not quite up to Richter's scale

Ben Lewis, Evening Standard 09.10.08 Reinvention: the pixels may be pretty as a picture but 4900 Colours has been imperfectly reimagined for the computer age “Gerhard Richter,” the gallery wall text at the entrance of this exhibition intones with wince-inducing grandiosity, “is one of the world’s greatest living artists.” Perhaps it’s just my jaundiced mind but in the context of this exhibition that sounded like art world code for an excuse: “… and that’s why we can get away with filling our entire gallery with just one somewhat boring work of art.” Still, a below-par Gerhard Richter is cleverer than a masterpiece by most other artists. “4900 Colours” consists of 49 pictures, all the same size, each a grid of 100 squares. Each square is one of 25 beautiful colours, a number chosen because it has a mystical significance in... [read full story]