User:Noorlara22/sandbox3

Helga Matura (1966) is in the collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Description
Helga Matura is a quintessential example of Gerhard Richter's Photo-Paintings stylized in a realistic and out-of-focus manner. Photographs are often considered to be indexical to reality, a mimesis that triumphs the possibility of deception. Poised and beautiful, Helga is sitting on the grassy bank of a cornfield she was a Frankfurt prostitute that was the victim of a brutal murder. The blurred yet visible image is a reconstruction of the paradoxical resistance that situates life and death as antagonistic forces. This image dissolves the instantaneous effect of the photograph through the fluidity of the paint, delaying the process of looking, extending the analysis and thus, making it conscious of itself (398).

Historical information
Gehard Richter began experimenting with Photo-Paintings when he relocated from East Germany to Dusseldorf in 1961. Uninfluenced by the expressionism of Art Informel, but persuaded by the precepts of the Fluxus and Pop Art movements, Richter turned his attention to journalistic photography and amateur snapshots and considered them to be the most reliable and detached record of visual reality. Although photographs are frequently perceived to be a reflection of reality, Richter acknowledged their curious inadequacy. Even when they captured their subjects with technical precision, upon closer examination the images would dissolve into a multitude of colourful grains. The triumph of Richter's aesthetic practices resides in his usage of blurring, erasing and streaking which have become painting's counterparts for photography's technological shortcomings (398).

'''"Every woman is allowed to have a friend -- only for me it is called a pimp." - Helga Matura'''

The tragically killed luxury call-girl Helga Matura was the victim of not only her death, but relentless and sensational headlines such as "The death of the courtesan" and "Who was Helga Matura?" Publications such as Quick chronicled her entire life. According to Quick for 9 years Mature had been the most successful luxury prostitute in Frankfurt. Among her elitist clientele, were important German business men and a supposed Saudi Arabian prince. Subsequent publications revealed information about her undignified burial "not laid to rest - but buried. No priest was there, nor her father, only five women stood there at the grave, among them Helga Matura's mother. None of them cried" (Revenue 14). The public treated Helga Matura's death as a fateful punishment, upholding the status quo in the society that a free women who is always in control of her actions would pay with her life for those actions.

Acquisition
Gift from the Volunteer Committee Fund, 1986