G. Richter’s “Atlas”: Strategies for representing modern visual practices

Abstract

In the era of the dominance of visual information, the study of vision models, cultural and historical constructs becomes particularly important, the core of which is an image as a category of cognition, representation, and perception. One of the phenomena of interest for visual research is Atlas, which can be described as a visual archive, as a productive form of organization of knowledge, representing a historical model of vision. For the researcher Atlas raises the problem of an image that performs cognitive functions and forms socio-cultural interactions. In addition, Atlas as a visual construct that can be an actual form of artistic expression. This article is devoted to the study of the Atlas of the outstanding German artist G. Richter (b. 1932). The Atlas is a unique art project that has been created for more than half a century (1962–2013), which is of interest as a space for the representation of a modern picture of the world and the practices of its perception. The Atlas is studied as a complex multilevel visual space, media in nature, heterogeneous in substance, which appeals to individual and collective memory, reflects the subjective image of the world of its creator. The article shows that the G. Richter’s Atlas reveals the dominance mechanisms of visual images, models the practices of representation and perception of reality, thus being itself a visual model of a modern world, penetrated by media streams.