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A corresponding agreement between the GERHARD RICHTER KUNST-STIFTUNG and the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation will be signed shortly. The central work of the long-term cooperation is the four-part cycle "Birkenau" (2014), which will be shown at the Alte Nationalgalerie from 16 March to 3 October 2021 under the title "Reflections on Painting". The show is supported by the Kuratorium Preußischer Kulturbesitz.

Gerhard Richter says: "The reason for setting up a foundation was the four Birkenau paintings, which I didn't want to put on the art market. This decision paved the way for a foundation that now comprises over 100 works. I am delighted that the paintings are coming to Berlin."

Monika Grütters , Minister of State for Culture, said: "The SPK's collaboration with Gerhard Richter and the donation of 100 of his works are not only a great gain for the art metropolis of Berlin, but above all an honourable vote of confidence in the Nationalgalerie. The Birkenau cycle is a key work for the city of Berlin, which more than almost any other symbolises the ruptures and contradictions of our history and the art of the 20th century. At the same time, the co-operation with Gerhard Richter already shows the signal effect of the new building of a museum of 20th century art. Not least because of these works, it will be a crowd-puller for culture enthusiasts from all over the world. I would like to thank Gerhard Richter very much for this generous donation, as well as Udo Kittelmann, who paved the way for this offer."

Hermann Parzinger, President of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, thanked the artist: "This great gesture by Gerhard Richter is an honour for the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation. One can say that a dream has come true. Gerhard Richter's work is inconceivable without German history. For many of us, his pictures are a way of coming to terms with the upheavals of the 20th century. At the same time, however, Richter's art needs and seeks the debates of the present. Where would be a better place for this than in Berlin? Gerhard Richter's foundation paintings mark the beginning of a new era for the Nationalgalerie, which will become even clearer with the construction of the Museum of the 20th Century."

Joachim Jäger, acting director of the Nationalgalerie, emphasises: "Gerhard Richter has had an immense influence on the development of art in recent decades. It is wonderful that the Nationalgalerie will soon be able to show a broad spectrum of his work on a permanent basis. At the same time, "Birkenau" will keep the memory of the Holocaust alive, combined with the question of how to deal with this unprecedented crime against humanity, which must be answered again and again."

Ralph Gleis, director of the Alte Nationalgalerie, says of the new exhibition: "'Reflections on Painting' form a core of Gerhard Richter's work, which also includes his cycles explicitly focussing on German history, such as 'Birkenau'. Richter's general reflection on the limits of representability in art connects the exhibition with the presentation in the Alte Nationalgalerie."

Under the title "Reflections on Painting", the Alte Nationalgalerie is showing Gerhard Richter's "Birkenau" cycle from 16 March to 3 October 2021. Consisting of four large-format, abstract paintings from 2014, the "Birkenau" cycle is the result of the artist's long and deep examination of the Holocaust. Gerhard Richter was intensely preoccupied with the question of whether and how the genocide of up to six million Jews and other people could be depicted at all.

The four paintings "Birkenau" are based on four photographs that were secretly taken by a prisoner in the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp in 1944. Gerhard Richter painted the photographs on four canvases. When this did not work, he began to paint over them one by one. The resulting abstract pictures thus move in an intermediate space between showing and not showing, documenting and remembering.

The works have already been shown in various constellations in Dresden, Prague, Moscow and New York. In Berlin, the four Birkenau pictures and the four photo originals are juxtaposed with a four-part mirror that raises further questions of reflection. The room in the Alte Nationalgalerie was curated by Ralph Gleis in consultation with the artist. The complexity of depiction and representation evoked by this cycle touches on fundamental questions of painting that have preoccupied people throughout the ages. This is precisely why Gerhard Richter chose the Alte Nationalgalerie as the venue for the presentation of the "Birkenau" cycle.

The presentation of the "Birkenau" paintings marks the start of a long-term co-operation between the GERHARD RICHTER KUNSTSTIFTUNG and the Nationalgalerie of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. The GERHARD RICHTER KUNSTSTIFTUNG is making more than 100 works from various creative phases of the German artist available to the museum: from individual works such as "Besetztes Haus" (1989) to important glass and mirror works such as "Spiegel, grau" (1991) or "6 stehende Scheiben" (2002/2011) to serial painting series in his late work such as "4.900 Farben" (2007), "Strip" (2013) or a series of abstract paintings from recent years.

Starting in 2023, significant parts of the Gerhard Richter collection will initially be exhibited at the Neue Nationalgalerie. The actual destination of the works is the new building at the Kulturforum, the "Museum of the 20th Century". A room on the upper floor is intended for this purpose. The centrepiece will be the "Birkenau" cycle, which will be on permanent display due to its great scope and its eminent significance for the history of Germany. The handling of Gerhard Richter's art in the new building will remain open to the discourses of the present. The Nationalgalerie will therefore develop regularly changing presentations for this room in order to enable new perspectives on the work of Gerhard Richter. Contemporary interactions with the work of Gerhard Richter are also conceivable and desired by the artist.

The agreed long-term cooperation between the Nationalgalerie and the GERHARD RICHTER KUNSTSTIFTUNG will continue an intensive and fruitful collaboration with the artist that has been ongoing since 2012 and the jointly organised retrospective "Gerhard Richter Panorama" at the Neue Nationalgalerie. Particularly noteworthy are the trusting discussions between Gerhard Richter, his wife Sabine Moritz-Richter, the then Director of the Nationalgalerie, Udo Kittelmann, and more recently with Foundation President Hermann Parzinger, the Acting Director of the Nationalgalerie Joachim Jäger and Jacques Herzog from the architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron.

The GERHARD RICHTER KUNSTSTIFTUNG was established by Gerhard Richter in 2020 to make his work permanently available to major public institutions. In addition to the Nationalgalerie of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden will also receive works from this foundation. The foundation's list of works is listed in the publication "Gerhard Richter-Kunststiftung" (Cologne, 2021).