IN 2013, Gerhard Richter broke his own auction record as the world's most expensive living artist when his painting Domplatz, Mailand (1968) sold for US$37 million. The previous record was for a US$34.2 million painting called Abstraktes Bild (1994) sold in 2012.

If you looked at the two paintings, you would not have thought they were by the same artist. The former is a grand photo-realist masterpiece depicting the Cathedral Square in Milan; the latter is an abstract melange of crackling reds, greens and yellows clashing with sullen blacks.

The German artist belongs to the school of artists who do not maintain a single cohesive style. And the ongoing retrospective of his works at the Beyeler Foundation museum in Basel, Switzerland demonstrates that beautifully. From room to room, your perspective of the artist changes as seemingly contradictory elements of his practice emerge.