The east window for the Greifswald Cathedral is Olafur Eliasson's first glass work in a church interior. The artist, known for his light installations, is thereby joining the ranks of contemporary artists who have designed windows in medieval churches. At the same time, Eliasson is drawing on a romantic vision of the cathedral, which was fundamentally remodelled between 1824 and 1832. The bright, whitewashed interior in neo-Gothic style still defines the overall impression of the brick building today, as coloured windows could not be used at the time. Eliasson approaches the romantic spatial vision with extreme awareness and reinterprets it. Inspired by Caspar David Friedrich's colour palette, his window is about the perception of light in constant change, about time and infinity.
Text: Bilingual German and English