Born in 1945 in southern Germany during the final days of the collapse of the Third Reich, Anselm Kiefer experienced firsthand a divided postwar Germany. Kiefer argues with history, addressing controversial and even taboo issues from the recent past with bold directness and lyricism. Rejecting the pared-down formalism of many of his generation, Kiefer does not fear narrative complexity, often turning to literature and poetry as source material, executing work in dramatically scaled formats that incorporate specialized exhibition spaces such as the one at MASS MoCA designed by the Hall Art Foundation.
Kiefer’s works have a powerful material presence, constructed of thick layers of paint, clay, lead, straw, dried flowers, and other organic materials, which are frequently left outside his studio to age. He often embeds texts and arcane symbolic or mythological references upon and within his painterly surfaces, the ground of his paintings reading quite literally as the cracked, charred ground of the earth or the roiled surface of the sea.
ÉTROITS SONT LES VAISSEAUX (NARROW ARE THE VESSELS), 2002
Étroits sont les Vaisseaux (Narrow are the Vessels) is a reference to a poem by the French Nobel Laureate in literature, Alexis Leger, a mid-20th-century poet-diplomat who wrote pseudonymously as Saint-John Perse. Though the violent, rubble-strewn affect of this work immediately reminds us of war—or the aftermath of natural disaster —the undulating wing-like waves and cascading rhythms also remind us that Kiefer conflates themes of disturbing power with those of love and the intensities of desire. The excerpt from the Perse poem that Kiefer has inscribed on the wall above this sculpture—Une même vague par le monde, une même vague depuis Troie, Roule sa hanche jusqu’à nous [One same wave throughout the world, one wave since Troy rolls its haunch towards us]—evokes the unending historic cycling of war across the globe; and yet we should note that those lines are immediately preceded by these:
…Étroits sont les vaisseaux, étroite notre couche.
Immense l’étendue des eaux, plus vaste notre empire
Aux chambres closes du désir.
…Et la rumeur un soir fut grande dans les chambres: la mort elle-même, à son de conques, ne s’y ferait point entendre!
[Narrow are the vessels, narrow our couch. Immense the expanse of waters, wider our empire
ABOVE: Anselm Kiefer, Étroits sont les Vaisseaux (Narrow are the Vessels), 2002. Concrete, steel, lead and earth. 60 × 960 × 110 inches
LEFT: Anselm Kiefer, Velimir Chlebnikov, 2004 (detail). Steel pavilion: 300 × 330 × 689 inches. 30 paintings: oil, emulsion, acrylic, lead and mixed media on canvas; 18 paintings at 75 × 130 inches each and 12 paintings at 75 × 110 inches each.
In the closed chambers of desire…
And the clamor one evening was loud in the chambers: death itself, blowing its conchs, could not have been heard!]
VELIMIR CHLEBNIKOV, 2004
Velimir Chlebnikov (1885–1922) was a Russian poet and Futurist who created complex analytical systems based on esoteric mathematical calculations meant to reveal paradoxes in logic and in the progression of history. Among Chlebnikov’s ideas was the notion that there are cyclical recurrences of climactic sea battles every 317 years. Kiefer takes this thesis as the starting point for his suite of 30 paintings housed in their own purpose-built pavilion. The text on the wall, inscribed in Kiefer’s hand, translates: “Time, Measure of the world—Fate of the people. The New Doctrine of War: Naval Battles Recur Every 317 Years or in Multiples Thereof, for Velimir Chlebnikov.”
War, at first, seems to be the central theme of the work with its depiction of waves and ships and the elegiac feeling and palette of death. Amidst the tumultuous waters, are hints of other concepts: on one painting the name Aphrodite is inscribed, and on an adjacent canvas the names Hero and Leander. Aphrodite, goddess of fertility and sexual rapture, arose, according to the poet, Hesiod,
from the foaming sea churned up when Cronus castrated his father, Uranus, casting his severed genitalia into the ocean. Hero and Leander were lovers in Aphrodite’s court whose nightly rendezvous required swimming nearly a mile each way across the treacherous Hellespont. Milky white stains and stars erupt across these and other canvases. Kiefer has written about his paintings conflation of stellar constellations, seeds, and the “millions of possibilities” (unachieved or unknowable) evidenced by distant stars and dried semen.1 Amidst the sweep of history and cyclical naval battles, we find eros, birth, and longing.
THE WOMEN OF THE REVOLUTION (LES FEMMES DE LA RÉVOLUTION), 1992
Kiefer’s The Women of the Revolution takes its inspiration from Jules Michelet’s 1854 study, Les Femmes de la Révolution, which chronicles the lives of specific women, who played an important role in the French Revolution (1789–1799). This work is comprised of lead beds representing specific French woman who aided in the efforts
Anselm Kiefer, Velimir Chlebnikov, 2004. Steel pavilion: 300 × 330 × 689 inches. 30 paintings: oil, emulsion, acrylic, lead and mixed media on canvas; 18 paintings at 75 × 130 inches each and 12 paintings at 75 × 110 inches each
around the Revolution, a period of social and political upheaval inspired by radical ideas of replacing the monarchy with a democracy.
Keifer’s installation represents authors, musicians, actresses, and poets (Mlle Landrille, Mdme de Staël, Mistress Macaulay, Mlle Maillard, Mdme Récamier, Olympe de Gouges, Mdme d’Epinay, Mdme de Genlis, Mdme de Condorcet); advocates for womens’ rights (Mdme Palm-Adler and Rose Lacombe) as well as key political dissidents (Cathérine Théot who brought down Robespierre; Mdme Legros who stormed the Bastille for independence; Charlotte Corday who murdered Jean-Paul Marat; and Théroigne de Mérincourt who was called the “Amazon of the Revolution” and spent the years from 1793 until her death in an asylum).
Accompanying the beds is a large black-andwhite photograph mounted on a sheet of lead, which has been created specifically for this exhibition installation.
ENGEL-STURZ (THE FALL OF THE ANGELS), 2010
JAKOBS TRAUM (JACOB’S DREAM), 2010
DIE SCHECHINA (SEFIROTH) (THE SCHECHINA [SEFIROTH]), 2010
Jakobs Traum (Jacob’s Dream) refers to the dream sequence in the Book of Genesis in which Jacob, grandson of Abraham, pauses his journey through the desert of Beersheba to rest his head on a cool stone. In his slumber, Jacob imagines a ladder, on which angels rise and fall. He wakes affirmed of God’s companionship and newly confident that he will be protected in his travels. The site of Jacob’s dream, which he names Bethel, a “house of God,” later becomes the location of the Temple of Jerusalem. Jacob’s ladder is often interpreted as the connection between heaven and earth—a metaphor that is strengthened by the offerings made at the Temple. In Kiefer’s allusion to the Hebrew tale, the ladder winds from scorched clay ground toward the ceiling of a 13-foot vitrine. Shrunken dresses, petrified in thick paint, hang precariously from the lead steps by thin wire, conjuring angels, absent bodies, and, perhaps, sacrifices.
Jakobs Traum (Jacob’s Dream) is accompanied by Engel-Sturz (The Fall of the Angels) and Die Schechina (Sefiroth) (The Schechina [Sefiroth]). Engel-Sturz (The Fall of the Angels) is similarly haunted by layers of children-sized dresses. But here, the hollow garments pile on top of each other like molted skin. The sculpture simultaneously navigates themes of commemoration and culpability. Interpreted as the discarded clothing of Holocaust victims, Engel-Sturz (The Fall of the Angels) operates as a memorial to the trauma experienced by Jews
Anselm Kiefer, The Women of the Revolution (Les Femmes de la Révolution), 1992/2013. Lead beds: dimensions variable. Photograph on lead: 138 × 174 inchesAnselm Kiefer, Engel-Sturz (The Fall of the Angels), 2010. Painted cotton dresses, wire, steel frame, glass pane, oil, emulsion, acrylic, shellac, clay on canvas in inscribed glass and steel vitrine; 235 × 107½ × 107½ inches
Anselm Kiefer, Jakobs Traum (Jacob’s Dream), 2010. Lead ladder, painted cotton dresses, wire, resin fern, oil, emulsion, acrylic, shellac, clay on canvas in inscribed glass and steel vitrine; 157 ½ × 59 × 59 inches
Anselm Kiefer, Die Schechina (Sefiroth) (The Schechina [Sefiroth]), 2010. Painted resin dress, glass shards, steel, numbered glass discs, wire in inscribed glass and steel vitrine; 179 × 82½ × 82½ inches
during the historic genocide. Yet its title also invokes the notorious fallen angel of Christianity: Lucifer, who having lusted after power, was banished from heaven. Kiefer’s remnants and the works title evoke victims’ ascension to heaven and Hitler’s rise to power.
Die Schechina (Sefiroth) (The Schechina [Sefiroth]) presents a single wedding dress, dramatically pierced by panes of glass. A ring of shattered glass encircles the base of the resin-painted gown. Another reference to the Temple of Jerusalem, “Shekinah” is the English transliteration of the Hebrew noun for dwelling, and denotes the presence of God. Within Jewish mysticism, the concept of Shekinah manifests itself in the form of a divine bride or a wandering woman. The feminine personification of God wanders the earth until the Messiah arrives, when she can then return to heaven. A numbered diagram of the Tree of Life emerges from the neck of the wedding dress, with En Sof, a final unknowable reality, hovering in a crescent of glass at the zenith of the sculpture.
These assemblages recall both the shapes of missing bodies and the cracked earth of post-war Germany, while reverberating with historical and spiritual polyphonies, recasting traumatic events from rubble.
WINTERWALD (WINTER FOREST), 2010
Winterwald (Winter Forest) situates the viewer amidst the brush and snow of a forest floor, looking up into an expanse of barren trees. Informed by the winter landscapes of German Romantic artist Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840), the painting reflects Kiefer’s deep interest in the cyclical nature of the forest, depicting a scene of desolation in the moments before spring. Within German culture, forest imagery was notably employed in the late nineteenth century during unification and later by Nazis to incite nationalist sentiment. For Kiefer, the setting holds personal and spiritual significance:
“I grew up in a forest. It’s like a room; it’s protected. Like a cathedral, it is a place between heaven and earth.”
A.E.I.O.U. (ELISABETH VON ÖSTERREICH) (A.E.I.O.U [ELISABETH OF AUSTRIA]), 1987
In A.E.I.O.U (Elisabeth of Austria), Kiefer paints directly on lead sheets, to which he attaches a toy-scale boat (like those from Velimir Chlebnikov). However, in A.E.I.O.U, history runs even deeper, and more convoluted. Here, the boat becomes an iconic stand-in for Empress Elisabeth of Austria, the Queen of Hungary (1837–1898) and wife of Franz Joseph I.
The “A.E.I.O.U” inscribed above the boat is an acronym coined by Hapsburg emperor
Frederick III (1415–1493). Referring to the Austro-Hungarian dynasty, the phrase stands for “Alles Erdreich ist Österreich untertan,” or “The whole world is subject to Austria.” Kiefer uses this acronym along with the boat to illustrate the dominant complexity of the Austro-Hungarian Empire reign, and Elisabeth’s more fragile role within it. Elisabeth was a sympathetic, free-thinking figure, who was nonplussed by the trappings of royalty and supported democracy while eschewing duties of state associated. Many believe that her extended travels and long voyages at sea were a way of sidestepping royal power, association, and responsibility.
Kiefer further complicates this history by superimposing these historic references to Austrian hegemony and the idiosyncratic Elisabeth onto a ship design that dates to the 1930/40’s—nearly a century after Elisabeth’s actual reign, but coterminous with the Nazis, thus suggesting the
exhibition.
Anselm Kiefer, Winterwald (Winter Forest), 2010. Oil, emulsion, acrylic, shellac, ash, thorn bushes, synthetic teeth, and snakeskin on canvas in glass and steel frames; 130 1/2 × 227 × 14 inches
inevitability of the ebb and flow of power, a theme that is evident throughout all of Kiefer’s works on view in thisAnselm Kiefer, A.E.I.O.U. (Elisabeth von Österreich) (A.E.I.O.U [Elisabeth of Austria]), 1987. Oil and lead on canvas, 110 × 130 × 8 inches 1 See “Art with a Purpose: The Continuing Saga of Anselm Kiefer,” Mark Rosenthal in Anselm Kiefer: Sculpture and Paintings from the Hall Collection at MASS MoCA, 2008, the Hall Collection and MASS MoCA, pp. 33-36.
The Hall Art Foundation makes available works of postwar and contemporary art from its collection and from the collection of Andrew and Christine Hall for the enjoyment and education of the public. In addition to the dedicated gallery space at MASS MoCA, the Hall Art Foundation operates its own two museums in Reading, Vermont and at Kunstmuseum Schloss Derneburg, situated near Hannover in Germany.
A long-term installation open seasonally May–November
Anselm Kiefer