To talk about paintings is not only difficult but perhaps pointless, too. You can only express in words what words are capable of expressing, what la… - Gerhard Richter

To defend painting: One has to believe in what one is doing, one has to commit oneself inwardly, in order to do painting. Once obsessed, one ultimately carries it to the point of believing that one might change human beings through painting. But if one lacks this passionate commitment, there is nothing left to do. Then it is best to leave it alone. For basically painting is pure idiocy.

He [Richter's art-mate, the German painter Sigmar Polke ] was very different, he was not cool.. .He had irony. He was very funny. The things we did together [around 1963 – 1970] were a kind of craziness.. .We thought everything was so stupid and we refused to participate. That was the basis of our understanding.. ..he was able to paint those little dots in his raster paintings by hand with such a patience while he was living with his two children and his wife in a small subsidized apartment.

My first photo Picture? I was doing large pictures in gloss enamel.. .One day a photograph of Brigit Bardot fell into my hands, and I painted it into one of these pictures in shades of grey. I had had enough of bloody painting, and painting from a photograph seemed to me the most moronic.. ..thing that everyone could do.