Cage Grid I (complete set)

The Cage Grid series extends the visual language of Richter's Cage paintings (2006) into the print medium. Those six large canvases were produced in sustained response to John Cage's philosophical positions on chance, silence and the rejection of compositional intention, and represent one of the deepest single-artist intellectual engagements of Richter's late career. The squeegee method produces marks generated by a consistent physical procedure that are, nonetheless, not intentionally designed in any conventional sense.

Across the sixteen panels of the complete set, the grid functions as both structure and composition. The individual cells are each self-contained abstract works, but their arrangement within the 4×4 field establishes a larger chromatic arc: the greens of the left-hand columns – teal, sage, mint, lighter olive-grey – give way progressively to yellows and warm grey-blacks in the right-hand columns, with white cutting through the surface as a recurring bright note. The shift reads almost like a weather system moving across a field of vision, though no representation is intended. The complete set was produced in an edition of 16 – one set for each of the panels within it – making it among the most limited of Richter's multi-part print editions.