Gerhard Richter: Afterness: Figures of following in modern thought and aesthetics

Abstract

In Afterness: Figures of Following in Modern Thought and Aesthetics, Gerhard Richter follows the same engaging approach that drove his Thought-Images: Frankfurt School Writers’ Reflections from Damaged Life (2007). While the earlier work gathered a constellation of Benjamin, Bloch, Kracauer, Derrida, and Adorno around the concept of Denkbild (‘‘thought-image’’), Richter’s latest book joins a wide-ranging body of modern thought and aesthetics using the organizing concept of Nachheit or ‘‘afterness.’’ Also like the Denkbild study, Richter’s thinking of Nachheit crystallizes around ‘‘paleonomic’’ Frankfurt School thought and concerns: Adorno, Benjamin and Bloch remain central thinkers (cf. p. 29. Also see Richter’s introduction to Thought-Images, 4–8, in which he defends his choice of rather marginal Frankfurt School thinkers based on their illuminating intellectual intersections, methods, and shared commitments). However, more sweeping constellatory arms touch Kant, Hegel, Heidegger, Arendt, Foucault, Derrida, Blanchot, Lyotard, Deleuze and others while drawing on aesthetic works from figures such as Friedrich Holderlin, Franz Kafka, Bertolt Brecht, and Stefan Moses. Indeed, Afterness is sometimes exhaustingly synthetic—sections showcasing Richter’s able handling of an encyclopedic breadth of material are interspersed with sections of more tightly-focused analysis. Breadth does not come at the expense of rigor, and Richter rewards the reader willing to hold together such diverse threads by delivering subtle, insightful, creative, and generative insights. Signaling his readers to pay attention not only to what he says but also to how he says it, Richter seems to have built the book around what appeals to him about Denkbilder (cf. Thought-Images, 1–3), his writing an aesthetic performance that engages philosophical criticism and produces theoretical insight—albeit in a longer, more developed form than Denkbild. This scholarly performance, combined with Richter’s overall fluency in the language of both Heidegger and postmodern