Domfenster by Gerhart Richter at the Köln Dom

Richter's work is the 20 meter high stained glass window in the South Transept, Domfestner made to replace the original which was destroyed during WWII. Richter's design is based on his 1970's abstract work titled "4096 Farben (4096 Colors)" which features, squares of colors rendered from the color palette of a printing ink manufacturer. Despite Richter's historical experimentation with the language and property of painting, the contemporary translation of 4096 Farben is not significant because it conveys the deconstruction of a paint, rather it speaks of a contemporary deconstruction of image and, given the location, the deconstruction of iconography.



Buchloch reads the significance of Domfestner from a material standpoint as he ponders the symbolism of colored glass through centuries of art as both a multi-cultural spiritual signifier and material of mysticism positioned against the opacity of paint, the chosen material of the Enlightenment.
I have to wonder why Buchloch is compelled to rummage through several centuries of western development before he attaches a signifier to Domfestner when the 11,263 squares of glass have more immediate references to viewers in 2007. In context with the other 35 stain glass windows featuring narrative figuration, Richter's colored squares don't read as an attack on the fallacy of abstract expressionism, as Richter once imagined.

They read as pixels. A deconstruction not of abstract painting but of coherent representation all together. Domfestner posits that in todays electronic information and media saturated environment once all of the myth, narrative and figuration is stripped from Catholic imagery what remains is a primal experience. Just as mythic icons serving as communication devices were surpassed by printing press technology and literacy, literacy is quickly fading with the emergence of electronic information. We have arrived at reduced unit of communication, the pixel; the most distilled manifestation of a visual image. Ones and zeros forming finite blocks of 256 colors.

This visual reductionism when placed in a house of worship, can be considered encouragingly universal: regardless of the iconography of any religion, the fundamental basis of imagery is the same. Apparently, this reductionism can also be perceived as a challenge to Catholic authority. Cardinal Meisner, archbishop of Köln refused to attend the window's inauguration ceremony. He articulated his objection with an official statement that " it could have well been placed in a mosque or a synagogue."

Beyond the implications of iconographic universality, Domfenster introduces something more polemic into the insular authority of the church, the reference of technology and her constant companion science.

In his review, Buchloh questions how we are to regard Richter's window. Is it site specific: in which case, where do we draw the perimeter demarcating his work from the arcane orchestrations and accouterments of the Catholic worship that occurs below? If so, then Domfenster raises some very large questions about the future of contemporary patronage and institution . Or are we to consider only the 11,263 handmade colored glass squares and regard the majesty of the DOM as simply an alternative venue for Richter?

Making for unlikely bedfellows, the Museum Ludwig, Köln 's contemporary art museum that directly neighbors the cathedral was exhibiting 4900 Farben, a 22' x 22' version of Domfenster executed in paint and a series of poorly printed digital sketches of the window. While the audience and dialogue surrounding these two manifestations of Richter's theme are divergent, they converge, so appropriately and significantly, in the capitalistic space of the tourist gift shop. In the modern sparseness of the Ludwig's book store,and the dampness of the makeshift ticket window to the Dom spire, pilgrims of both sorts can purchase a commemorative poster of Domfestner.