Amalgam

Gerhard Richter, Landscape (1992)

Why do most of your paintings look like blurry photographs?

I’ve never found anything to be lacking in a blurry canvas. Quite the contrary: you can see many more things in it than in a sharply focused image. A landscape painted with exactness forces you to see a determined number of clearly differentiated trees, while in a blurry canvas you can perceive as many trees as you want. The painting is more open.

Gerhard Richter, Interview with Irmeline Lebeer (1973)

Michel Corajoud Bourse Square Mirror (2006)

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Intense

I never use water as a barrier. I use water in cities as a living force, on some level like plants. It moves, it sparkles, it sounds good, you can touch it, you can play in it. (…)

I wouldn’t be in this work if I didn’t think it would—well, I don’t know how much it transforms people—but it can go a long way toward making their lives more meaningful and enhancing their lives. And if it’s done right, it can promote healing. A lot of healing can be done in a wonderful environment. (…)

They will feel about you that you’re going to make something wonderful for them. And they help you by expressing themselves. Not telling you how to do it, but encouraging you and accepting your vision and working with you on that kind of a level. (…)

‘Memorable’ and ‘intense’ and ‘passionate’ are words that I prefer to ‘pretty’ when I’m making places for people.

Lawrence Halprin, Notebooks 1959-1971 (1973)

Lawrence Halprin, Ira Keller Fountain Park (1970)

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