Enigmatic and intriguing, Tri-star is a collaboration between two of the most important contemporary German artists: Gerhard Richter and Isa Genzken. Originally conceived by Genzken in 1979 as an edition of 40 works, Tri-Star consists of a phonograph record which features the noises made by the titular Tri-Star aeroplane motor. In 1981, Richter used grey nitro lacquer to paint one side of the records for a further edition of 75, to which the present lot belongs. Despite their varied artistic processes and differing areas of interest, Tri-Star signifies Genzken and Richter’s united desire to create conceptual artwork that is deliberately inscrutable but ultimately thought-provoking.
“There is nothing worse in art than, “you see it and you know it”… That’s a certainty I don’t like.”
—Isa Genzken
Famed for her inventiveness and her engagement with an astonishing variety of artistic techniques, Genzken is renowned for analysing the human experience in contemporary society and critiquing capitalism through her work. By recording a Tri-Star aeroplane – one of the earliest wide-body airliners to enter commercial operations – and disseminating the sound in the same format one would expect music to be distributed, Genzken alludes to anxieties surrounding the potential impact of increased modernity and technology on creativity and the arts. Yet, characteristically, this is never overtly stated, and Genzken’s recording is instead left open for the viewer to decipher.
Genzken’s conceptual approach to Tri-Star is echoed in Richter’s material engagement with the work. Attracted to the neutrality and inconspicuousness of grey, Richter applied the industrial paint on the reverse of each record in varying organic circles. Richter’s use of grey is well documented as being deliberately indecipherable. In the 1970s, the artist produced several groups of grey paintings which are widely interpreted as a reaffirmation of his understanding of artistic purity. As equally opaque as Genzken’s approach, Richter’s use of materials actively symbolises his resistance to engage with implicit ideologies in his artwork.
“Grey. It makes no statement whatever; it evokes neither feelings nor associations: it is really neither visible nor invisible. Its inconspicuousness gives it the capacity to mediate, to make visible, in a positively illusionistic way, like a photograph. It has the capacity that no other colour has, to make 'nothing' visible.”
—Gerhard Richter
