IT HAS TO BE SAID BUT ....

I had tried to get to the recent Anselm Kiefer exhibition last Sunday. Just couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the queue. I don’t think that I have ever seen something so long. They were undoubtedly all going to see the cartoonist Claire Bretécher but there was no way I would confront that crowd, even if the Kiefer was empty. So I went back today. A dark dreary scene outside but I was expecting such a dark and upsetting scene inside. You know how much I enjoyed the BNF exhibition

 SOMETIMES COLD EXCURSIONS CAN BE WORTHWHILE

but this one left me feeling pretty low. It shouldn’t have as there are so many historical facts that have to be faced when an artist is talking about Germany or is German and is confronting his own history.

The exhibition is unprecedented in terms of scope and selection. It provides a retrospective journey through the prolific career of the celebrated German artist from the late Sixties to the present day. Around sixty paintings, from major private and public collections throughout the world, dialogue with installations, showcases and books in an exhibition designed as a series of dramatic moments in the artist's career, with his entire approval.

The paintings are in the order that l saw them 

Man in the Forest 1971

Cock Chafer, stolen! 1974

Painting of burnt land, 1974

Cauterization of the Buchen district
The face of the German People - 1974

Woman's extasy
Marie of the Vallees - 2012

For the Unknown Painter, 1982

For the Unknown Painter, 1982

The end of our days, the end of everything 2014

Ice and Blood, 1971

The Adige, 1969

Brunhilde Asleep, 1980

Poland has not as yet disappeared, 1975

Elisabeth in Corfou, 1976

Siegried forgets Brunehilde, 1975

The Land of progression, Brandebourg, 1974

Resurrexit, 1973

Malen, 1974

Palette suspended on a corde, 1977

Cavalcade toward the Vistule, 1980

An image quarrel, 1980

Quarternité, 1973

Varus, 1976

Teutobourg Forest, paths of the world's wisdom, 1980-81

Magarethe, 1981

For the Unknown Painter, 1983
2

For the Unknown Painter, 1983

Interior, 1981

Columns, 1983
Kiefer was born in the spring of 1945. During the Seventies, he, Georg Baselitz, Gerhardt Richter, Sigmar Polke and Jorg Immendorff participated in the revival of German painting, which emerged in an international context marked by Neo-Expressionism. Kiefer rapidly established a highly singular style, marked by an obsession with history and myths from German culture. Immersion in the past and memory are his strategy for answering the question gnawing at this generation of artists: how to create after Hitler? Let’s face it, it can’t be easy at all.

In 1984, when he went to Israel for an exhibition, Kiefer became even more  aware of the loss of Yiddish culture within the heart of Germany's culture, and grief for it, because of the "final solution". He was then studying the philosophy of the Talmud and the texts of the Kabbalah,  At the time, the artist was inspired by concepts such as Tzimtzum (contraction) and Shevirat ha-kelim (the shattering of vessels). Kiefer began to build up a body of work that moved away from traditional Western figuration moving into the realm of symbolism, or a "presence".

 Once again he uses many different elements in his works. Sand, lead, steel….very much as we saw at the BNF exhibition.


The Bigs cargo, 2008

Slender veins, 2002

Osiris and Isis, 1985-89

Paths, in Brandebourg, 1980

He who breaks vases, 1990
Toward the end, there are a series of installations within glass cabinets or showcases. Even these, although some of them quite beautiful, did not bring a smile to my lips.

Unless painted onto the glass of the showcase, they had no titles.
















Thor




Valentinos









Suddenly there was color - after the black, the dark, the bodies and symbolic snake….but even looking closer at the « flowers », I discovered that quite frequently they seemed to be heads and even then, there was that dead soul lying in the forest.

Flowers, 2001-2015

Asleep, 2013-2015

The Langauge of flowers and silent things, 1995-2015

 Flower taken close. There is a face

For Paul Celan: Thorn of the night, 1998-2013

Before leaving, there was a huge installation in one gallery.....




A time line, but saying what?
 A little light relief when I visited the « Make a Sand Castle » in the children’s atelier but then I looked down on another installation of Kiefer's and my heart sank once more.
« In Climbing, climbing towards the heights, fall into the abyss »












Yes, these statements have to be made. Too many people are putting aside the holocaust or even saying that it never happened. Such a horror must never be forgotten. This world is destructive as it is but the next exhibition I go to see must be full of color and positive.

Commentaires

Michael Keane a dit…
It seems to me that the first things we do when confronted with a new artist is to try to slot him (or her) into a particular ‘school’, and then attempt to summarize or categorize his particular way of working, or in other words: find a universal theme which runs through all his images. I look at these German paintings and I see a predominance of uprights in the form of columns or trees, and objects in disappearing perspectives. Also - Installations usually leave me cold, but these have an ‘organic’ quality which I quite like. Thanks, Maggie, for your post.
4/3/16 22:27
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