DRESDEN.- On March 19th, 2005, the Galerie Neue Meister presents a further selection of works by Gerhard Richter at the Albertinum in Dresden. Many of Richter's Dresden paintings are currently on loan to a large touring exhibition visiting D�sseldorf, Munich and Japan.

Following intensive negotiations with the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Dresden State Art Collections have now succeeded in acquiring the 15 paintings of the "18. Oktober 1977" as a loan to Dresden. As this will be the first time that the complete set of works has been shown in Richter's home town, the exhibition constitutes an artistic event of outstanding importance. In Dresden, a city scarred by suffering and death in 1945, the work of Gerhard Richter has a particular resonance, for it interrogates art's ability to approach the matter of recent history in a way that circumvents preconceived ideas. Although terrorism is, once again, a topical theme, Richter's paintings demonstrate that it is still impossible for us to categorise or come to terms with the events of the 1970s.

The Dresden exhibition is a spectacular achievement, not least because the Museum of Modern Art has had to suspend the lending of artworks to other institutions, due to its recent move and building work. It was only due to Dresden's importance for the presentation of Richter's work that the current exhibition was made possible.

Gerhard Richter created this series of canvases between March and October 1988. It is the best-known work in his "political" oeuvre. Richter's paintings are also a negotiated reaction to the threat posed by terrorism and political extremism, and by the response of the organs of state power in the Federal Republic of Germany. As Richter himself put it: "The death of the terrorists, and everything that went with it, before and after - it was monstrous. It affected me, and although I tried to avoid thinking about the subject, it has continued to preoccupy me ever since, like something I had neglected to deal with."