Gerhard Richter / Cologne Cathedral and Museum Ludwig, Cologne

Gerhard Richter: “Zufall” (chance) / Cologne Cathedral’s south transept window and “4900 Farben” (4900 colors) at Museum Ludwig / Cologne. 72 shades of color, each appearing 72 time per level, “out of which the computer uses a random number generator to determine the color arrangement for one half of the cathedral window; the other half is a reflection of the first.” This was Richter’s sober recapitulation of the design for the south transept window of Cologne’s High Cathedral. Parallel to the consecration of the window, the Museum Ludwig is showing some older works of Gerhard Richter and a number of drafts for the window project. The centre of the show “4900 Colors” make up a recent panel painting with the same title. Also to see is the old painting 4096 Colors from 1974 which was the basis for Richter’s considerations about the cathedral window and which in reproduction served as the first test image laid behind the tracery outlines. See the catalogue: Gerhard Richter: Zufall which is published by Verlag Kölner Dom and Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Cologne. By Thom de Bock.

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“Born in Dresden in 1932, Gerhard Richter counts among the world’s most important and at the same time most popular contemporary artists. His oeuvre has had a not inconsiderable influence on younger generations of artists. Gerhard Richter has received numerous international awards and distinctions. He lives and works in Cologne. (…) Richter’s oeuvre has developed continuously over a period of more than four decades. Despite the diversity of his motifs and styles, the artistic concept behind his work has always remained the same: it is the attempt, as Gerhard Richter himself once put it, to “form my own picture of this world of ours”. In so doing, Gerhard Richter approaches the theme from ever new and different aspects.” (Excerpt from the Gerhard Richter Archive).

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