In 2007 the southern window of Cologne Cathedral (original destroyed in World War II) was replaced with one designed by Gerhard Richter. He designed it free of charge but sidestepped the brief, which was to illustrate a martyr scene. The 65-foot window is filled with randomly determined coloured squares, as in his 1970s paintings.(1)
Detail
What's the significance of this? Richter has huge status as an artist, and the cathedral is a landmark. Richter is making his work not for gallery goers but a similtaneously local and international community (i.e congregation and tourists). Therefore the artwork was a public event. These factors may excite religious types hoping to 'claim' his work or surprise art critics (2). But the work in someway bypasses the church as a perceived institution (Richter later dismissed catholic criticism by stating simply I am not a catholic ) despite embracing both the church building and church people.
At 78, Richter lived through Nazism and Communism in Germany, losing family to the former. He has made a statement referring to religion and political ideologies: I consider belief of every kind…to be superfluous and mortally dangerous. Replacing this window is a gesture, a correction of damage done to the church building by previous ideologies. He has also said of other work:
One has to believe in what one is doing, one has to commit oneself inwardly, in order to do painting. Once obsessed, one ultimately carries it to the point of believing that one might change human beings through painting. But if one lacks this passionate commitment, there is nothing left to do. Then it is best to leave it alone. For basically painting is idiocy.
The two statements taken together seem to permit personal belief, but reject shared ideology. There's a lot of modern debate on how a society can operate without a belief system; opposites like Christianity/Atheism and Capitalism/Marxism are commonly deemed to have failed. I see Richter's window as a dialectical attempt not to solve society's internal contradictions or his own, but to acknowledge them.
Following the destruction of the original stained glass the window was filled with clear glass. Had Richter not designed the window, the brief of depicting a martyr may have been followed. Richter’s design could be seen as an iconoclastic intervention in that process. In the end, I don't know what Richter's intentions were. And that may be the point. I think the proposition made by this event, this cross over of contexts, if anything, is to ignore your ideology.
1
http://www.gerhard-richter.com/art/search/detail.php?6089
2 Robert Storr suggested the window was an act of faith for Richter:
http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/god_only_knows/
