The Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris is currently presenting an unprecedented retrospective of German painter Gerhard Richter, bringing together sixty years of artistic creation including paintings, sculptures, drawings, watercolors, and photographs. Considered one of the most important artists of his generation and a major figure in contemporary art with international recognition, Richter's exhibition spans more than six decades of work.
Following the foundation's tradition of monographic exhibitions dedicated to major figures of 20th and 21st-century art such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Joan Mitchell, Mark Rothko, and David Hockney, the Louis Vuitton Foundation has dedicated all of its spaces to the German painter. The comprehensive show features work ranging between abstraction and figuration, including blurred photographs, vibrant watercolors, sculptures, and drawings that reveal the artist's diverse and emblematic body of work.
The exhibition journey highlights the diversity of an artist who tirelessly explores the boundaries of image-making, from the blurred paintings of the 1960s to the vast scraped colors of his recent abstractions. Richter, who appreciated "infinity and permanent insecurity," questions our relationship with memory, reality, and perception. The display offers a unique opportunity to grasp the amplitude of a work in perpetual metamorphosis that never strays far from History.
However, the retrospective has received decidedly mixed reviews from art critics. Corinne Rondeau, a lecturer in aesthetics and art sciences at the University of Nîmes and art critic, expressed profound disappointment with the exhibition. "Coming out of the Richter exhibition, I really wondered if I was the right viewer: I only felt deep boredom," she stated. "The repetition, the absence of development, all of this creates an exhibition that refuses meaning."
Rondeau noted that while everything stems from a tragic German and personal history - the uncle who died at the front, the murdered aunt, the father's suicide, the Baader gang, Birkenau - "everything is constantly blurred, erased." She continued, "Faced with this work that blurs, covers, and prevents interpretation, I find myself really helpless. Even the mirrors that send me back into history seem to dissociate me further."
Stéphane Corréard, editorialist at the Journal des Arts, offered a different but equally critical perspective. "A superlative exhibition: always bigger, always more works. I found the exhibition overwhelming, both oppressive and domineering," he remarked. However, he praised the scenography, noting that "the spaces are brought down to almost domestic, more intimate dimensions - which is not often the case at the Vuitton Foundation - in any case to the scale of the works that alternate formats, sometimes majestic, but never excessive."
Corréard appreciated that the route follows a proper sequencing by decade, calling the exhibition "honest" because "it gives the same place to each decade of Richter's work over sixty years and allows us to see how the work unfolded." He observed that "what struck me is that Richter's formal vocabulary is actually present very early in his career."
As a counterpoint to the Richter exhibition, Rondeau highlighted another show that captured her attention: "Untitled (Passport)" at the L'Atlas Gallery. Named after a work by Gonzalez-Torres composed of fake passports showing clouds and birds, this exhibition questions the very notion of borders. The show, curated by Julian Friedman, brings together artists from Palestine, Togo, Afghanistan, Ukraine, and Russia, mixing photos and videos under the engagement of the Open Doors on Art association, which has been working with artists in exile for several years.
Rondeau was struck by "the power of the works, which create counter-narratives in the face of war, authoritarianism, or exile," including "the diverted documents of Ramal al-Jafari, the veiled criticisms of Russian artists, or the large photo by Zahra Khodadi, which opens towards a horizon of freedom." She concluded that "this exhibition reminds us that the imaginary is a form of resistance and that we share the same humanity."
The Gerhard Richter retrospective at the Louis Vuitton Foundation runs from October 17, 2025, to March 2, 2026, while "Untitled (Passport)" at the L'Atlas Gallery is on display from November 10 to December 20, 2025.
