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Cemetery Chapel, Fürstenwald Chur,
"Omnia cui cedunt, divino cedat amoris" 1996 – Leta Peer
Catalogue text, "Kunst im öffentlichen Raum Graubünden",
Quart Verlag Lucerne 2003
ISBN 3-907631-43-9
Author: Isabelle Köpfli, Zurich in May 2003
From the outside, the milk-white glass window front of
the chapel is opaque, but not transparent. Similar to a picture puzzle
and depending on the way the
light falls and on the viewer's perspective or movement, gradually only a few
outlines appear at first, then the beginnings of the features of bodies or
faces. Yet nothing is recognizable or definite. In the memorial place at the
transition between life and death, this mystery, something virtually symbolic
remains incomprehensible, impenetrable.
What reveals itself to the eye, though, when one enters
the house of prayer, are multiple fragments from religious image language
from both the western
and the eastern world. The techniques of representation that were originally
tied to culture – painting, relief, mosaic – have been overcome
in the rough grain due to enlargement, so that they are able to conjoin with
one another. The whole arrangement thus strives for a unity without succumbing
to a leveling.
The warm pastel shades of the pictures, from yellow to
orange and a delicate violet and greenish charcoal gray, first really
unfold their luminosity when
sunlight falls on them, fade when clouds pass by. Then the pictures seem somewhat
cracked and bodiless. The interplay of light and color brings movement, vitality
into the composition. This is enhanced by a two-fold depth effect. Since the
individual pictures are applied to three sides of the multiple glazing, they
cast shadows on the image planes behind, as well as onto the translucent Thermolux
structure that separates the outermost panes. A special effect is created at
night when light is on inside; then the pictures are also visible from the
outside, their colors reduced.
The new building of the Fürstenwald Cemetery, in an elevated location
above Chur and close to the edge of the forest, was built in 1996 by the architectural
firm of Urs Zinsli as a simple exposed concrete cube.
The gigantic chapel window was created by the artist
Leta Peer (*1964) from Graubünden, who lives and works in Basel, New York and Florence. To animate
the six-meter high and eleven-meter wide window surfaces, the artist purposely
started from miniatures, details or particulars taken from books or postcards.
Using a special technique of copying, she enlarged the models to forty times
the original size and applied them to the panes of glass with a screenprint
technique.
Ignoring the division of windows given by the metal supporting
structure, the twelve picture segments form a rhythm of their own. Five
motifs are each arranged
mirror-like in relation to an imaginary vertical axis, whereby the motif at
the side, the Madonna with Child, overlaps itself. The principle of duplication
occurs here again, not because of shadowing or mirroring, but rather as a perpendicular
shift. This motif with the largest surface area is taken from Filippino Lippi's
Madonna of the Sea, a small Renaissance panel picture from Lorenzo de Medici's
collection measuring just 40 x 28 cm in the original, which was first attributed
to Boticelli.
Above and to the side of the Madonna, there are scenes
from the life of Buddha, taken from Indian terracotta reliefs from the
Mathura School: Young Woman and
Comedian and Kubera, the god of riches, from the 9th century as a Hindu motif.
A third motif, the pensive youth (2nd/3rd century), completes
this series towards the upper center of the window. Overlapping himself
in a mirror image, he forms
the entrance into the artwork, because the composition can be most easily read
here, due to the only minimal overlapping and because it is surrounded by free
window surfaces. Towards the side it becomes more and more dense and complex,
so that it is difficult to visually isolate the individual elements. The fifth
motif, and the only one that is not figurative because it is from Islam, is
from a faience mosaic from the Andalusian Alhambra, and it flanks the center
of the picture. The reason why Leta Peer succeeds in avoiding that the systematic
image arrangement has a static or banal effect, is due to the asymmetry of
the coloration.
The window radiates an atmosphere of tranquility, inviting
reflection and meditation. In addition to the harmonious coloration,
this may also be due to the interplay
of dimensions. The sheer size of the window is relativized by the immense enlargement
of the figures and ornaments that radiate stability in their clear arrangement.
These pictures that we all recognize either in this way
or in variations, which have lasted though centuries as though they had
always been there, allude to
a kind of suspension of time, eternity.
Those who find their way into the chapel are thus confronted with Christian,
Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic and, implicitly, Jewish icons: the surfaces free of
images symbolize the form of the seven-armed candelabrum, the Menorah. At the
same time, though, the openness of the work also signals taking religions not
explicitly addressed into consideration. In this sense, Leta Peer's artistic
design of the house of prayer is courageous and sensitive, as she takes in
the spiritual state of mind at the threshold to the third millennium without
judging or weighting and thus meets the jury's requirement of not visualizing
restrictions that determine specific religions.
Sacral art, once prepared for a better understanding
of religious subject matter, but also as a reverence and memorial to
the divine and the afterlife, does
not reveal the secret of life, yet it makes what is universally religious more
present and thus more comprehensible. Comfort may be found in this and in the
juxtaposition and intermingling of these cultural testimonies there is also
a reflection on human fate, in which we are, to a certain extent, united. Humanity
has always sought answers to this and has at least found meaningful ways of
dealing with it, including gestures and actions such as ceremonies of leave-taking.
"An impressive phenomenon of the ritual of death
today is that of reconciliation, which often includes the last words
of the dying person, coming to terms with
the past, and, not least of all, a spiritual blessing," writes Leta Peer
in her project dossier. "Because, as though we had only this moment in
life to reconcile ourselves with everything, both life and death, we are filled
with the longing to cast off all these earthly resistances. - As though earthly
resistance were not most tangible in dying. - Perhaps we should seek reconciliation
earlier, so that we can say later: it is good, after all, that there is an
end to that too."
The small inscription in the lower right corner of the
artwork speaks for itself:
Omnia cui cedant, divino cedat amori. (All that happens to us, happens
through divine love.)
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