Anselm Kiefer

Anselm Kiefer ranks among the best known post-World War II European artists; indeed his intense focus on national identity, culpability, and the confluence of history and myth ranks him among the most important artists working anywhere today. Born in 1945 in southern Germany during the final days of the collapse of the Third Reich, Kiefer experienced firsthand a divided postwar Germany. Across his body of work, 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, and executing work in dramatically scaled formats that incorporate specialized exhibition spaces such as the one designed here by the Hall Art Foundation at MASS MoCA.

Kiefer’s works have a layered material presence, constructed of dense, thick layers of clay, lead, straw, dried flowers, and other organic materials, which are frequently left outside his studio to weather and age. He often embeds texts and arcane symbolic or mythological references upon and within these thick 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, in this case).

This long-term installation realized by the Hall Art Foundation is comprised of three works, one of which has been augmented with a new element created

by Kiefer specifically for this exhibition.

ÉTROITS SONT LES VAISSEAUX (NARROW ARE THE VESSELS) 2002. Concrete, steel, lead and earth. 60 x 960 x 110 inches

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 some ungodly natural disaster —the undulating winglike waves, velvety textures, and cascading, oddly seductive 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 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!]

And immediately followed by these: …La terre un soir pleure ses dieux, et l’homme chasse aux bêtes rousses; les villes s’usent, les femmes songent…

Qu’il y ait toujours à notre porte Cette aube immense appelée mer—élite d’ailes et levée d’armes; amour et mer de même lit, amour et mer au même lit— […The land one evening mourns its gods, and man hunts rust-red badgers; cities wear down, women dream May it always be at our door That immense dawn called sea—élite of wings and levying of weapons; love and sea of the same bed, love and sea in the same bed. 1 ] 1

See Anselm Kiefer: Velimir Chlebnikov and the Sea, Harry Philbrick, Derneburg Publications and The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, 2006, pp.97-98.

VELIMIR CHLEBNIKOV 2004. Steel pavilion: 300 x 330 x 689 inches. 30 paintings: oil, emulsion, acrylic, lead and mixed media on canvas. 18 paintings at 75 x 130 inches each and 12 paintings at 75 x 110 inches each

Velimir Chlebnikov (1885-1922) was a Russian poet and Futurist who created complex analytical systems based on esoteric mathematical calculations meant to reveal vast 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 this epic 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.”

And so war would at first seem to be the theme, propelled by pounding waves and ships and the elegiac feeling and palette of death. But

here too, amidst the turmoil of roiling waters, are hints of other themes: we find a single word inscribed in one painting, centrally positioned in the upper register, Aphrodite, and near it, among one of the few canvases without a ship affixed, the words 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 the severed genitalia into the ocean.

Hero and Leander were lovers in Aphrodite’s court whose secret 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 the content of his paintings in ways that conflate stellar constellations, semen, and the “millions of possibilities” (unachieved or unknowable) inherent in the idea of distant stars and the stains of dried semen. 2 Amidst the grand sweep of history and the unending cycle of naval battles, we again find intimate thematic strands of eros, birth, and longing.

THE WOMEN OF THE REVOLUTION (LES FEMMES DE LA RÉVOLUTION) 1992/2013. Lead beds: dimensions variable.

Photograph on lead: 138 x 174 inches

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, in their uncompromising willingness to pursue democratic values, played an important role in the French Revolution. Kiefer’s work is comprised of more than twenty lead beds with photographs and wall text, each representing one of the famous French women, as well as a large black-and-white photograph mounted on a sheet of lead which has been created specifically for this exhibition installation.

2

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.

HALL ART FOUNDATION at MASS MOCA 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 a contemporary art space in Reading, Vermont.

interior flap: Velimir Chlebnikov, 2004 (detail) Steel pavilion: 300 x 330 x 689 inches.

30 paintings: oil, emulsion, acrylic, lead and mixed media on canvas. 18 paintings at 75 x 130 inches each and 12 paintings at 75 x 110 inches each.

Anselm Kiefer A permanent installation on view from September 27, 2013

1040 MASS MoCA Way North Adams, MA 01247 413.MoCA.111 massmoca.org