Praeterita

I was at the Art Institute of Chicago yesterday, going around with some students and talking about the things that they responded to. After the class was over, I took a quick through the modern wing to see what's new. On the way to finding something that I didn't expect to like but did, I passed something I always thought I liked but realised I now don't: As I said recently in a different context, Richter's reputation will easily survive my negative opinion about him.  But a sudden encounter with his work, particularly the squeegeed paintings like the one above, made me think how lazy, incomplete, underdone he is. There's no reason for this gesture to exist, not even as a 'let's drag the paint and maybe the results will be beautiful/unexpected/absorbing/failed in an interesting way." There's no sense of touch or feeling in it, and not in a cool "the absence of touch or feeling is the whole point" sort of way. If you want to defend th...