Heaven and Earth
Anselm Kiefer
Heaven and Earth
SFMOMA
October 20 2006 – January 12 2007
Anselm Kiefer’s weightless pictorial idealism, the merged histories of his layered pieces that conjure static environments, are framed kaleidoscopically throughout Heaven and Earth by the natural and sculptural properties of the materials he uses and the post World War II German legacy he re-members.
Anselm Kiefer
Aschenblume, 1983-97
Oil, emulsion, acrylic paint, clay, ash, earth, and dried sunflower on canvas
149 5/8 x 299 1/4 inches (380 x 760 cm)
Collection of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth
Gift of Anne and John Marion in honor of Michael Aupingth
Acquired in 2002
Die Aschenblume (Ash Flower), 1983-97, is composed of oil, emulsion, acrylic, clay, ash, earth and dried sunflower on canvas. Displayed next to Die sechste Posaune (The Sixth Trumpet), 1996, itself composed of emulsion, acrylic, shellac, and sunflower seeds on canvas, a compositional juxtaposition is set up between the singular physical trumpet-like sunflower placed in relief down the centre of Die Aschenblume, and the devastational sprawl of seeds that cover the entire surface area of Die sechste Posaune.
Die Sechste Posaune (The Sixth Trumpet), 1996
Emulsion, acrylic, shellac, sunflower seeds on canvas
204 3/4 x 220 1/2 inches (520 x 560 cm)
Collection SFMOMA
© Anselm Kiefer; photo: Ben Blackwell
The Sixth Trumpet Judgment (Revelation 9:13-21) is the destruction of one third of mankind by two hundred million demonic horsemen. Positioned adjacent to Die sechste Posaune, the dried singular trumpet of Die Aschenblume is a mute symbolic relic of the angel’s call within this apocalyptic story, appended to the arid altar Kiefer loosely delineates through a layering of paint, ash and earth. Prayer symbols surface jarringly on this dry rendition of war-like sulphurous elements through touches of red paint that recall Lev 8:15, when Moses slaughtered the bull. Taking some of the blood with his finger, he touched the horns of the altar to purify it.
Kiefer works with the premise and process that creation and destruction are one and the same. This physical approach to making explains the congruity in dryness and desperation which both landscapes engender in their material layers, despite their compostional differences. The solitary relief flower in Die Aschenblume is not dissimilar to the evenly sprawled army of seeds in Die sechste Posaune. The latter painting represents a modern parallel of military hardware as well as offering the possibility of rebirth at the juncture where the fallen seeds (from heaven to earth) meet the pictorial and material representation of arid devastation. This gesture is echoed in Die Aschenblume in the way the sunflower hangs and hovers delicately in wait over the beaten surface, its dried head caught sculpturally between desired speech and hearing. The monumental scale of both aridly built up canvases lends a further humanity to Kiefer’s sculptural gestures within these paintings, as their scale serves to refer directly to Germany’s epic post-war historical legacy caught between its devastational earthen situation and the promise of heaven. His own poetic, gestural interface with a war-torn German inheritance holds a religious potency amidst his own cultural context where compatriots seem intent on forgetting.
Melancholia, 1990-1991
Lead and crystal
126 x 174 x 65 3/4 inches (320 x 442 x 167 cm)
Collection SFMOMA and private collection
© Anselm Kiefer; photo: Ben Blackwell
The crystal appended to the stationed lead airplane, Melancholia, 1990-91, is an art historical reference to Albrecht Dürer’s Melancholia I of 1514, an engraving representing the melancholic temperament through a depiction of an angel-winged woman, sitting on the ground with her head in her hands, a tetrahedron on the left hand side of the work. Kiefer’s sculptural replication of the tetrahedron in crystal, on the left wing of his lead plane is not only a nod to Dürer’s philosophical composition, but also a specific reference to the ravages of the air raids of World War II. Kiefer works with the dual life of both ideas and history, playing with the intermittent state of exposition this process allows. His oeuvre is almost democratic in its appeal to the viewer to find their own position between encompassed oppositions.
Kiefer exhibited at the Royal Academy a few months later, a show I reviewed for The Oxford Times on 20 April 2007
Heaven and Earth
SFMOMA
October 20 2006 – January 12 2007
Anselm Kiefer’s weightless pictorial idealism, the merged histories of his layered pieces that conjure static environments, are framed kaleidoscopically throughout Heaven and Earth by the natural and sculptural properties of the materials he uses and the post World War II German legacy he re-members.
Anselm Kiefer
Aschenblume, 1983-97
Oil, emulsion, acrylic paint, clay, ash, earth, and dried sunflower on canvas
149 5/8 x 299 1/4 inches (380 x 760 cm)
Collection of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth
Gift of Anne and John Marion in honor of Michael Aupingth
Acquired in 2002
Die Aschenblume (Ash Flower), 1983-97, is composed of oil, emulsion, acrylic, clay, ash, earth and dried sunflower on canvas. Displayed next to Die sechste Posaune (The Sixth Trumpet), 1996, itself composed of emulsion, acrylic, shellac, and sunflower seeds on canvas, a compositional juxtaposition is set up between the singular physical trumpet-like sunflower placed in relief down the centre of Die Aschenblume, and the devastational sprawl of seeds that cover the entire surface area of Die sechste Posaune.
Die Sechste Posaune (The Sixth Trumpet), 1996
Emulsion, acrylic, shellac, sunflower seeds on canvas
204 3/4 x 220 1/2 inches (520 x 560 cm)
Collection SFMOMA
© Anselm Kiefer; photo: Ben Blackwell
The Sixth Trumpet Judgment (Revelation 9:13-21) is the destruction of one third of mankind by two hundred million demonic horsemen. Positioned adjacent to Die sechste Posaune, the dried singular trumpet of Die Aschenblume is a mute symbolic relic of the angel’s call within this apocalyptic story, appended to the arid altar Kiefer loosely delineates through a layering of paint, ash and earth. Prayer symbols surface jarringly on this dry rendition of war-like sulphurous elements through touches of red paint that recall Lev 8:15, when Moses slaughtered the bull. Taking some of the blood with his finger, he touched the horns of the altar to purify it.
Kiefer works with the premise and process that creation and destruction are one and the same. This physical approach to making explains the congruity in dryness and desperation which both landscapes engender in their material layers, despite their compostional differences. The solitary relief flower in Die Aschenblume is not dissimilar to the evenly sprawled army of seeds in Die sechste Posaune. The latter painting represents a modern parallel of military hardware as well as offering the possibility of rebirth at the juncture where the fallen seeds (from heaven to earth) meet the pictorial and material representation of arid devastation. This gesture is echoed in Die Aschenblume in the way the sunflower hangs and hovers delicately in wait over the beaten surface, its dried head caught sculpturally between desired speech and hearing. The monumental scale of both aridly built up canvases lends a further humanity to Kiefer’s sculptural gestures within these paintings, as their scale serves to refer directly to Germany’s epic post-war historical legacy caught between its devastational earthen situation and the promise of heaven. His own poetic, gestural interface with a war-torn German inheritance holds a religious potency amidst his own cultural context where compatriots seem intent on forgetting.
Melancholia, 1990-1991
Lead and crystal
126 x 174 x 65 3/4 inches (320 x 442 x 167 cm)
Collection SFMOMA and private collection
© Anselm Kiefer; photo: Ben Blackwell
The crystal appended to the stationed lead airplane, Melancholia, 1990-91, is an art historical reference to Albrecht Dürer’s Melancholia I of 1514, an engraving representing the melancholic temperament through a depiction of an angel-winged woman, sitting on the ground with her head in her hands, a tetrahedron on the left hand side of the work. Kiefer’s sculptural replication of the tetrahedron in crystal, on the left wing of his lead plane is not only a nod to Dürer’s philosophical composition, but also a specific reference to the ravages of the air raids of World War II. Kiefer works with the dual life of both ideas and history, playing with the intermittent state of exposition this process allows. His oeuvre is almost democratic in its appeal to the viewer to find their own position between encompassed oppositions.
Kiefer exhibited at the Royal Academy a few months later, a show I reviewed for The Oxford Times on 20 April 2007
posted by Claire Nichols at 4:59 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home