Daniel Richter’s work subverts the genre of epic historical painting. Often working from media images, his large-scale paintings reconstitute current events as timeless fables, spinning the anxiety of contemporary zeitgeist into overwhelming tableaux of allegorical fantasy. In Gedion, Richter paints a crowd of people outside a stadium. The figures are given a ghost-like presence, radiating with a supernatural aura. The carnival-esque atmosphere is infused with a malefic tension; a boozy Saturday night reconstituted as imperious myth. In the background, naked figures tend to the building; their presence is reminiscent of cherubs in Renaissance religious painting.–>