Gerhard Richter (b. 1932)

"We only find paintings interesting because we always search for something that looks familiar to us. I see something and in my head I compare it and try to find out what it relates to. And usually we do find those similarities and name them: table, blanket, and so on. When we don't find anything, we are frustrated and that keeps us excited and interested until we have to turn away because we are bored. That's how abstract painting works."
(Richter quoted in "Interview with Gerhard Richter," exh. cat., Gerhard Richter: Forty Years of Painting, R. Storr (ed.), New York, 2002, p. 304).