As early as the seventies, Leonard Rickhard had created his own painterly universe where dense birch forests, building sites and vast arrays of machinery were combined with detailed renderings of machine parts and model fragments, all in a carefully calculated mathematical perspective. Over the years these subjects have been challenged, problematized and recontextualized by the artist, but never abandoned. Within the framework of his persistent effort with painterly issues, Rickhard has thus formulated a precise and consistent oeuvre that is constantly able to redefine itself.
This catalogue takes its point of departure in the various aspects of Rickhard’s art. Jon-Ove Steihaug turns the perspective back on the Renaissance theory of the image, while Wenche Volle explores one of the new paintings in the exhibition in the light of Rickhard’s other output. Martin Herbert places Rickhard’s art in a contemporary international context, and shows how the experience of his oeuvre is as relevant today as it was forty years ago.
Published by: Bergen Kunsthall, 2009
Editors: Solveig Øvstebø and Steinar Sekkingstad
Artist: Leonard Rickhard
Texts: Solveig Øvstebø, Martin Herbert, Jon-Ove Steinhaug, Wenche Volle
Design: Ole Martin Lund Bø
Pages: 128
Illustrations: 101
ISBN: 978-82-997326-7-3
Hardcover: 23,5 × 25,5 cm
Price: EUR 31 / NOK 250