Chicago
Gerhard Richter
The Art Institute of Chicago
111 South Michigan Avenue
June 22–September 15, 2002
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA)
151 Third Street
October 11, 2002–January 14, 2003
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
Independence Avenue at Seventh Street, SW
February 20–May 18, 2003
Curated by Robert Storr
Gerhard Richter shows come and go with an anodyne regularity; each occasion is more or less gorgeous, more or less intelligent, but a certain tedium has set in. Hence, the Museum of Modern Art’s painting retrospective—organized by curator Robert Storr and comprising some 180 works from 1962 to the present—provides a welcome opportunity for reevaluation of this canonical figure in contemporary art. Richter’s achievement, when considered in full, should more than offset the cookie-cutter, by-the-yard collector’s chic that too often seems his stock-in-trade.