Pure abstraction. The randomly arranged color squares from Gerhard Richter’s 192-panel work, 4900 Colours.

Gerhard Richter’s 4900 Colours from 2007 is a major new work consisting of bright monochrome squares that have been randomly arranged in a grid pattern to create stunning fields of kaleidoscopic color. It was produced at the same time he developed his design for the south transept window of Cologne Cathedral, unveiled in August 2007, which is made up of 11,500 handcrafted squares of glass in seventy-two colors.

4900 Colours consists of 196 panels in twenty-five colors that can be reassembled in eleven variations—from a single expansive surface to multiple small-format fields. Richter developed Version II—forty-nine paintings, each of which measures ninety-seven by ninety-seven centimeters—especially for the Serpentine Gallery. The richly illustrated catalogue includes texts by Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, Peter Gidal, and Birgit Pelzer.

Exhibition schedule: Serpentine Gallery,London, September 23–November 16, 2008