Oil paint on canvas
Tate Modern
Tate Collection
Works with images
Works on display
General Collection
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/gerhard-richter-1841" aria-label="More by Gerhard Richter" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Gerhard Richter</a>
Cage 1  6
Lent from a private collection 2007
abstraction
blur
chance
colour
emotions, concepts and ideas
film, music and ballet
formal qualities
gestural
literature and fiction
music: Cage, John
non-representational
spontaneity
texture
<p><span>Cage (1) – (6) </span>2006 is a group of six large, square abstract paintings by the German artist Gerhard Richter. Three of the canvases measure 2900 x 2900 mm, while the other three are slightly larger, at 3000 x 3000 mm each. The paintings all have a similar thickly painted surface that is rough and textured in appearance. They are composed of a progression of horizontal and vertical bands and a series of multi-directional scratches and indentations that are scraped into the painted surface. In specific areas of the paintings, the upper layers of paint have been removed and several sublayers of colour exposed. In each painting, the layers of colours and the composition of the bands and marks are different. <span>Cage (1) </span>is predominantly lime green in hue with a wide bottle green bar running horizontally across the upper quarter of the composition, and at the far right of the work is a wide vertical band composed mostly of white, but also containing yellow and green. <span>Cage (2) </span>is largely pale grey, white and lime green, with small exposed areas of bright red and charcoal grey. <span>Cage (3) </span>is composed of multiple scratch marks and indentations and<span> </span>is mostly light grey and white, with small patches of lime green, bottle green, dark grey, blue and red. <span>Cage (4) </span>has multiple sublayers of paint exposed, while <span>Cage (5) </span>is predominantly grey with white, red, pale yellow and a small amount of black. <span>Cage (6) </span>is the most varied in its range of exposed underlying colours, but it overall composition is mainly green, white, yellow, black and blue. The paintings are designed to be hung together in one large gallery space.</p>
painting oil paint canvas
22 February 2008 – 1 October 2008
2008-10-01
22 February 2008 – 1 October 2008
2008-10-01
2008-02-22
Tate Modern (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/
2008-02-22
Gerhard Richter
Collection based display
18 October 2008 – 31 July 2009
2009-07-31
18 October 2008 – 2 February 2009
2009-02-02
2008-10-18
Museum Ludwig (Cologne, Germany)
27 February 2009 – 17 May 2009
2009-05-17
2009-02-27
Haus der Kunst (Munich, Germany)
2008-10-18
Abstract Paintings
Loan-out
14 July 2009 – 18 September 2011
2011-09-18
14 July 2009 – 18 September 2011
2011-09-18
2009-07-14
Tate Modern (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/
2009-07-14
Gerhard Richter
Collection based display
6 October 2011 – 24 September 2012
2012-09-24
6 October 2011 – 8 January 2012
2012-01-08
2011-10-06
Tate Modern (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/
13 February 2012 – 13 May 2012
2012-05-13
2012-02-13
Neue Nationalgalerie (Berlin, Germany)
http://www.neue-nationalgalerie.de/
6 June 2012 – 24 September 2012
2012-09-24
2012-06-06
Robert Rubin
2011-10-06
Gerhard Richter: Panorama
Exhibition
13 February 2012 – 24 September 2012
2012-09-24
13 February 2012 – 13 May 2012
2012-05-13
2012-02-13
Neue Nationalgalerie (Berlin, Germany)
http://www.neue-nationalgalerie.de/
6 June 2012 – 24 September 2012
2012-09-24
2012-06-06
Robert Rubin
2012-02-13
Gerhard Richter: Panorama
Loan-out
14 December 2012 – 20 April 2014
2014-04-20
14 December 2012 – 20 April 2014
2014-04-20
2012-12-14
Tate Modern (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/
2012-12-14
Gerhard Richter
Collection based display
18 May 2014 – 10 January 2015
2015-01-10
18 May 2014 – 7 September 2014
2014-09-07
2014-05-18
Fondation Beyeler (Riehen/Basel, Switzerland)
http://www.beyeler.com
2014-05-18
Gerhard Richter
Loan-out
1 April 2015 – 19 January 2020
2020-01-19
1 April 2015 – 19 January 2020
2020-01-19
2015-04-01
Tate Modern (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/
2015-04-01
Gerhard Richter
Collection based display
2 March 2020 – 1 February 2021
2021-02-01
2 March 2020 – 5 July 2020
2020-07-05
2020-03-02
The Met Breuer (New York, USA)
2020-03-02
Gerhard Richter
Loan-out
3 December 2020 – 10 April 2021
2021-04-10
3 December 2020 – 30 January 2021
2021-01-30
2020-12-03
Gagosian (Beverley Hills, USA)
25 February 2021 – 10 April 2021
2021-04-10
2021-02-25
Gagosian Gallery (New York, USA)
http://www.gagosian.com
2020-12-03
Gerhard Richter
Loan-out
2 August 2021
2 August 2021
2021-08-02
Tate Modern (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/
2021-08-02
Gerhard Richter
Collection based display
8 October 2025 – 31 March 2026
2026-03-31
8 October 2025 – 31 March 2026
2026-03-31
2025-10-08
Fondation Louis Vuitton Pour La Création (Paris, France)
2025-10-08
Gerhard Richter: Sixty Years
Loan-out
Cage (1) - (6)
support: 2901 × 2905 × 46 mm
support: 3000 × 3000 × 36 mm
support: 2905 × 2903 × 46 mm
support: 2906 × 2900 × 46 mm
support: 3002 × 3005 × 40 mm
support: 3004 × 3000 × 36 mm
Lent from a private collection 2007
<div class="text">
<p>
<i>Cage (1) – (6) </i>2006 is a group of six large, square abstract paintings by the German artist Gerhard Richter. Three of the canvases measure 2900 x 2900 mm, while the other three are slightly larger, at 3000 x 3000 mm each. The paintings all have a similar thickly painted surface that is rough and textured in appearance. They are composed of a progression of horizontal and vertical bands and a series of multi-directional scratches and indentations that are scraped into the painted surface. In specific areas of the paintings, the upper layers of paint have been removed and several sublayers of colour exposed. In each painting, the layers of colours and the composition of the bands and marks are different. <i>Cage (1) </i>is predominantly lime green in hue with a wide bottle green bar running horizontally across the upper quarter of the composition, and at the far right of the work is a wide vertical band composed mostly of white, but also containing yellow and green. <i>Cage (2) </i>is largely pale grey, white and lime green, with small exposed areas of bright red and charcoal grey. <i>Cage (3) </i>is composed of multiple scratch marks and indentations and<i> </i>is mostly light grey and white, with small patches of lime green, bottle green, dark grey, blue and red. <i>Cage (4) </i>has multiple sublayers of paint exposed, while <i>Cage (5) </i>is predominantly grey with white, red, pale yellow and a small amount of black. <i>Cage (6) </i>is the most varied in its range of exposed underlying colours, but it overall composition is mainly green, white, yellow, black and blue. The paintings are designed to be hung together in one large gallery space.</p>
<p>Richter made the<i> Cage</i> paintings in his studio in Cologne in 2006. Art historian and curator Robert Storr has recorded Richter’s process of conceiving and executing the paintings in a detailed photographic and textual account that documents each successive developmental stage (see Robert Storr, ‘The <i>Cage</i> Series: Paintings by Gerhard Richter’, 2009, <a href="https://www.gerhard-richter.com/en/videos/works/the-cage-paintings-40">https://www.gerhard-richter.com/en/videos/works/the-cage-paintings-40</a>, accessed 17 June 2016). ‘One does not find many brush marks’ in the paintings, notes Storr, adding that ‘the squeegee is the main protagonist’ (see Storr, 2009, p.69).<i> </i>Storr posits Richter’s use of the squeegee and what he refers to as the resulting ‘smears’ as the artist’s single most innovative contribution to the history of painting. He observes that Richter’s large, handmade squeegee tools, which often extend to several metres wide, have a clear flexible edge, allowing Richter to observe what is occurring on both sides of the blade as it moves across the surface of the painting distributing pre-applied amounts of paint. Storr continues:</p>
<p class="cttext">
</p><blockquote>Depending on the quantity, consistency, and placement of the paint and the degree of pressure employed, the oily material will stick to, and for the most part conceal the layer beneath with a uniform smoothness, mix with the preceding layer causing streaks and blooming chromatic tonal fusions, fail to stick and leave little cavities and canyons.<br/>(Storr 2009, p.69.)</blockquote>
<p>In addition to oil paint Richter also regularly used oil of carnation as a retarder to prevent the paint from drying too quickly. According to Storr, this had the effect of creating ‘striations that suggest motion as well as magnification as if the image were passing by the viewer at high speed like a matrix of vastly enlarged mineral particles miraculously glimpsed in a nuclear accelerator’ (Storr 2009, pp.64–5).</p>
<p>The <i>Cage</i> paintings are named after American minimalist and experimental composer John Cage, whom Richter greatly admired and to whose music the artist listened during the period he was making these paintings in 2006 (Storr 2009, accessed 17 June 2016). Richter first encountered Cage in the 1960s at a performance given by the composer at the Düsseldorf Academy, where the artist was studying. Cage performed a piece in which he wrote with a microphone attached to a pen so that the scratching sound of the pen moving across the surface of the paper was transmitted. In an interview with curator Hans Ulrich Obrist in 2006, Richter discussed the <i>Cage</i> paintings and the ongoing significance of John Cage’s concepts of discipline, chance and coincidence for his works. Chance plays a definitive role in abstract painting, Richter explained: ‘Despite all my technical experience, I cannot always exactly foresee what will happen when I apply or remove large amounts of paint with the scraper. Surprises emerge, disappointing ones, pleasant ones, which in any case represent changes to the painting – changes that I have to process first in my mind before I can continue’ (Richter 2009, p.531).</p>
<p>What Richter and Cage both share, observed Storr, is ‘a willingness to let go of certain kinds of control in order that other things happen’ (Storr 2009, accessed 17 June 2016). However, Richter has noted that the coincidences only become useful in his paintings when they have been ‘worked out’ – as he described it, either ‘eliminated’, ‘allowed’, ‘emphasized’ or ‘brought into a particular form’ (Richter 2009 p.531). He concludes that this is what constitutes the ‘skilful’ and the ‘artistic’ (Richter 2009 p.531).</p>
<p>The <i>Cage</i> paintings were displayed for the first time at the 52nd Venice Biennale in 2007 in an exhibition curated by Storr entitled <i>Think with the Senses – Feel with the Mind: Art in the Present Tense</i>.</p>
<p>
<b>Further reading</b>
<br/>Robert Storr, <i>Cage:</i> <i>Six Paintings by Gerhard Richter</i>, London 2009.<br/>Gerhard Richter, <i>Text: Writings, Interviews and Letters 1961–2007</i>, London 2009.</p>
<p>Judith Wilkinson<br/>May 2016</p>
</div>

Summary
2016-06-20T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
abstraction blur chance colour emotions, concepts and ideas film, music and ballet formal qualities gestural literature and fiction music: Cage, John non-representational spontaneity texture