Gerhard Richter's mosaic-like Doha pavilion will open in November
Designed with starchitect Annabelle Selldorf, the six-sided waterside structure will provide a 'three-dimensional experience of Richter's work'
Gerhard Richter, one of the most influential German artists, will launch a permanent pavilion devoted to his work in Doha, Qatar, in November. The announcement was made yesterday (10 September) in Berlin by Qatar Museums (QM), which commissioned the project, at the Neue Nationalgalerie to coincide with Berlin Art Week (until 13 September).
Doha Pavilion: Gerhard Richter has been designed by the 94-year-old artist, one of the most influential of his generation, with the architect Annabelle Selldorf, whose most recent projects include the renovation of the Frick Collection in New York and the National Gallery’s Sainsbury Wing in London. Sheikha Al-Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, the chair of QM and sister of the Emir, described the pavilion as “a three-dimensional experience of Richter’s work in different variations”. She said the project grew out of a visit the artist made to Qatar in 2013.
The irregular six-sided pavilion is being constructed in a large waterside park that links the IM Pei-designed Museum of Islamic Art with what will become the Art Mill Museum of Modern and contemporary art. Colourful patterns on the outside of the structure are based on mosaic-like pieces of a painting, Abstract Painting (724-4) , 1990, that Richter digitised, cut into 8,192 strips and began rearranging in 2011. Inside there will be three large Strip paintings and a Strip Tower sculpture, derived from the same process, and two works from his Mirror series, which he began in the 1980s. Natural light filters into the space through an oculus above.
Selldorf described the pavilion as a sculpture as well as work of architecture. She said: “The more you experience the exterior and the interior, the more it will become apparent that it is a continuity of the endlessness represented in the Strip paintings”. She added that “the mirrors are on two walls, so that the visitor is in continuous conversation with themselves and with the works of art”.
Richter had not travelled to Berlin but was represented by his wife, the artist Sabine Moritz, and daughter Ella. He said in statement that “two years into developing my Strip paintings, Doha’s architecture and history sparked an idea for a pavilion that could unite the thematic threads of the body of work”.
Sources say that QM has bought other major works by Richter. Al-Mayassa said that she could not reveal what was in the collection but that a large Richter exhibition is being planned, similar to the retrospective QM mounted of Damien Hirst’s work, Relics , in 2013-14.
Al-Mayassa did confirm that the new Rubaiya Qatar quadrennial titled Unruly Waters , will go ahead despite ongoing tensions between Iran and the US in the region. She said the once-every-four-year exhibition was inspired by a visit to Documenta in Germany in 2017. Richter’s pavilion is scheduled to opened to coincide with the opening of Rubaiya to the public on 21 November (until 30 April). Around 60 artists will be showing including Ghanian artist Ibrahim Mahama who will “wrap” the flour mill that will become the Art Mill Museum, currently scheduled to open in 2030.
