Gerhard Richter donates 18 works to house homeless in Germany

Gerhard Richter, one of the most celebrated living artists, has donated eighteen of his works to benefit the Housing First project in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. The proceeds from the sale, expected to exceed €1.5 million ($1.6 million), will be used to purchase permanent housing for approximately one hundred homeless individuals. The works belong to three series of six color prints from the ongoing Cage f.ff cycle, initiated in 2006, with the specific series dated 2015. They can be purchased as a set from the Fiftyfifty gallery in Düsseldorf for $493,080 each, or individually via the gallery's website. All proceeds go to the Housing First Fund, which launched its German branch in 2014 and focuses on providing housing as a fundamental human right. Richter's involvement is not unprecedented; he previously donated the Birkenau series to the German Parliament and a site-specific work to the city of Münster. Other artists like Jeff Koons and Andreas Gursky have also contributed to Housing First. The initiative aims to acquire about one hundred housing units, though Düsseldorf alone has over two thousand homeless individuals, with more than twenty thousand across the region.