Kahnfahrt, 1965

About the Work

Gerhard Richter’s ‘Boat Trip’ is a painted reproduction of a newspaper photo. The artist projected the small photo onto the canvas with a slide projector and painted it on a greatly enlarged scale. A document which has been reproduced many times over in a newspaper or magazine thus becomes unique. Presented in a museum gallery, the image of the boat trip is perceived by the viewer as a painting. By employing an already existing photo, however, the artist is responsible for neither the work’s pictorial composition nor for the invention of the figures.