Materialism
Hantaï |--------------------------------------|--------------------------------------| Richter
Polke
In the past 100 years, what's really mattered in painting is how artists come to terms with their medium. Materialism is a category that encapsulates and distinguishes among a wide range of approaches.
On the left side, Hantaï offers a view toward working through painting situated in the materials themselves. Richter's work, on the other hand, suggests that we can only cycle through images committed to painting. (Upon leaving East Germany in 1961 he says, "I did not come here [West Germany] to get away from 'materialism': here its dominance is far more total and mindless.") Polke's work swerves back and forth between the two extremes.
I hold all three artists in equally high regard.
