Spanische Akte (über Richter)
Spanish Nudes (over Richter)
Acrylic, oil and enamel on canvas
100 x 100 cm
2014
Information
This work reproduces a fragment of a screenshot of an online Catalogue Raisonné, which we can identify by its numbers and texts. Although, if we know the author, the year of creation indicated on the painting doesn’t make much sense. This and other information, such as the size and technique of the painting, don’t correspond to Daniel’s work, but to the original source with which it shares the title.
If we are not able to recognise the ‘Spanish Nudes’ from the picture, we can find out by doing a bit of research that it is based on a painting by Gerhard Richter. Not content with being able to imitate his photorealistic oil painting technique at a young age, Daniel ‘vandalises’ the figures by painting another group of girls over them with enamel. The girl on the right and the left are exactly the same, which suggests a kind of action in motion that reminds us of some works by Warhol. The computer-rendered and hand painted dots are only identifiable from a distance, whereas the opposite happens for the oil-painted image.
Perception and truthfulness, both on a perceptive and conceptual level are called into question with this work. The creation of a ‘sibling’ painting that shares most of the visual and textual information of its precedent provides further insights into these considerations.