Gerhard Richter (b. 1932) is one of the most influential artists at work
today. His painting September, a response to the attacks on the World
Trade Center on September 11, 2001, was made some four years after the
event. The eminent American critic and curator Robert Storr, who has had
a long working relationship with Richter, explores both the painting and
the event itself, through a very personal account of his experience in
New York on the day of the attacks. Storr shows, both through words and
comparative illustrations, how this painting is part of a current
running throughout Richter's career of responses to traumatic, violent,
and controversial events, including works based on the bombing of cities
in World War II and the capture of the West German Baader-Meinhof
terrorist group