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In 1980, Richter developed a device with which he could smear white paint over a photo painting. Having become dissatisfied with a certain work, he covered it over with white paint. When Joseph Beuys, an artist whom Richter greatly admired, saw this painting at an exhibition and praised it, Richter retitled the work in Beuys' honor. The creation of this work symbolizes a reproduction of his earlier work, Table, yet here the process that Richter invented became a method for later work. The new device for applying white paint could either replace or be used in conjunction with a regular paintbrush. In either case, the layers of paint that Richter applies to a canvas portrays the artist's disillusionment with traditional art and his need to open up the visual space he creates for the sense of ambivalence.
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