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polity west germanyconcept:era contemporary

October 18, 1977

A cycle of 15 oil paintings (1988) by Gerhard Richter, based on press photographs and police documentation of the Baader-Meinhof Group (Red Army Faction / RAF). The date is when three imprisoned RAF leaders (Gudrun Ensslin, Andreas Baader, Jan-Carl Raspe) were found dead in Stammheim Prison — officially suicides, disputed by some. The blurred, monochrome photorealist works treat the RAF story as German historical trauma.

Scholarly Significance

Richter's October 18, 1977 (1988) is the central political artwork of post-WWII German painting — 15 blurred photorealist canvases depicting the deaths of the Baader-Meinhof Group (RAF). BFA Pioneer axis: critical reception + political context.

Notes

  • ·October 18, 1977 was the date that marked the climax of the 'German Autumn' (Deutscher Herbst): three RAF leaders were found dead in Stammheim Prison; the Lufthansa hostage crisis was resolved; the kidnapped industrialist Hanns Martin Schleyer was killed by the RAF.
  • ·Richter worked from press photographs and police documentation; the blurring technique renders the images ambiguous, refusing both identification and clear moral judgment.
  • ·The 15 paintings depict: youth portraits of Gudrun Ensslin and Ulrike Meinhof; the Stammheim prison cell; the dead bodies; a record player; and other RAF-associated images.
  • ·Richter's stated aim was to represent a chapter of recent German history that had not been adequately processed — neither by the state nor by his generation.
  • ·The cycle was criticized both by the left (who saw it as aestheticizing terrorism) and the right (who saw it as sympathizing with the RAF).
  • ·The paintings were first exhibited at the Krefeld Kunstmuseum in 1988; the reception was highly contentious.
  • ·Richter insisted the cycle was not political art but painting about history — a characteristically evasive statement.
  • ·MoMA acquired the cycle in 1995; their 2002 exhibition of the works in New York coincided with post-9/11 debates about political violence and its representation.