Overpainted Photographs

Gerhard Richter

LUMA Arles presents an exhibition of Gerhard Richter’s Overpainted Photographs, one of the most decisive and uncompromising bodies of work within his six-decade practice. By intervening directly onto photographic snapshots with layers of oil paint, Richter dismantles the photograph’s authority as a stable record of reality. The image is neither fully revealed nor fully obscured but becomes transformed into a contested surface where representation and abstraction collide.

In these concentrated works, Richter subjects the photographic image to gesture, chance, and material force. The painted marks interrupt the image’s descriptive function, shifting it from a vehicle of evidence to a space of ambiguity. What appears is no longer a document, but an event that exposes how memory, perception, and meaning are continuously constructed and undone.

Overpainted Photographs articulate questions that run through Richter’s practice, such as the limits of representation, the instability of truth, and the conditions under which images shape belief. The exhibition offers a rare opportunity to encounter these quiet yet radical works, underscoring their enduring relevance and their profound influence on contemporary artistic discourse. In a time defined by the proliferation and manipulation of images, Richter’s Overpainted Photographs stand as foundational works, redefining the image as a site of uncertainty, resistance, and transformation.