Loo Paper

Loo Paper is a signed photographic print after the painting Toilet Paper [CR: 75-3], which Richter painted in 1965. The print’s source image was itself based on a photograph - a fact referenced by its markedly two-dimensional, ‘blurred’ style. To the left of the image, lighter shades of grey, blue, and white mix  to give the impression of an interior wall, lit from a window. Yet with these shadows in mind, the focal point of the image - a loo roll - appears to sit awkwardly on the very same wall. Deviating from the photographic ‘truth’ of its source image, the painting deconstructs the still life scene by ‘blurring’ it into patches of uniform tone. Behind this visual technique of ‘blurring’ is a particular philosophy. Richter explains: ‘I blur things so that they do not look artistic or craftsmanlike but technological, smooth and perfect. I blur things to make all the parts a closer fit. Perhaps I also blur out the excess of unimportant information.’

Part of the Atlas series, Loo Roll references Richter’s sizable collection of visual material of the same name, which comprises found images, newspaper cuttings, and family photographs. Assembled since the 1960s, when Richter fled from East Germany with his young family to settle in the West German city of Düsseldorf,  the Atlas collection has formed the referential basis of many of the artist’s paintings, including Elisabeth II (1966) and Hund (1965).