Gerhard Richter
Anthony D'Offay
Gerhard Richter made his first mirror painting a decade ago. It is a conventionally silvered square of glass, framed with thin wooden battens, which lie flush with the mirror’s surface. As with many abstract paintings, the frame functions less as a decorative border than as a means of protecting the edges without interfering in the dialogue between physical fact and surface illusion. As both an undiscerning reflector of arbitrary truths and the specific site of the viewer’s reflection on the possibility of meaning, the work ties in closely with Richter’s abiding preoccupation with the relationship