Aladin – P11

In Gerhard Richter’s ‘Aladdin’ (2010) painting, autonomously flowing purple, yellow, blue, red and
green enamel paints construct an entrancing abstract composition. On a flat surface, Richter poured
the colours and watched them move, sometimes merging to form smoke‐like forms as in the
painting’s upper left corner while other times maintaining their boundaries as in the purple field in
its lower left. Consistent across the work is an overwhelming sense of scientific movement,
practically akin to chemical reactions.

Richter cleverly captured this movement by applying glass over the painting’s surface, effectively
solidifying the pigments in a single moment in time. The cool, hard surface of the glass produces a
flattening effect, negating the tactility of the paint and establishing an abstract distance.

Richter returned to ‘Aladdin’ in 2014 with ‘Aladdin (P11)’, an inventive Diasec‐mounted chromogenic
print on aluminium. This superb facsimile captures the sensibility of its original, reproducing the
exact image as well as its distancing and flattening effects. Reversing the logic of his photo paintings,
‘Aladdin (P11)’ further abstracts the original image through printmaking, rendering it an artwork in
its own right and another form of Richter’s investigations into how he can harness technology in
order to facilitate abstraction.