The Alchemy of Anselm Kiefer

"It is utterly beyond our power to measure the changes of things by time... Time is an abstraction at which we arrive by means of the changes of things; made because we are not restricted to any one definite measure, all being interconnected." - Ernst Mach

Horlogium, Anselm Kiefer, 2003 (oil, emulsion, acrylic, and plaster plants on canvas)

A dark and turbulent scene displays the power of nature in shades of grey and blue; sea and shore converge. The elements collide, blend and swirl in a transitory, impassioned dance. A leaden book attached to the canvas floats in a tempestuous sky, as a reservoir of achievements in knowledge or imagination. Memories to revisit, perhaps, that humanity has for so long elevated above nature, as if it can somehow be separate from what it is merely a part. The book open to a page that can never be read, never be understood.

I encountered this painting from artist Anselm Kiefer at the Essl Museum, in a contemporary building  located in a in a quiet little town just outside of Vienna, Austria. Even with the pleasant natural lighting of the gallery falling through the skylights, the works of art–grand in dimension, darkness and decay–command an overpowering presence.

Upon first entry into the airy exhibition space, I was overwhelmed by the massive, contrasting presence of this piece, Nur mit Wind mit Zeit und mit Klang [Only with Wind with Time and with Sound], the title taken from the Ingeborg Bachmann poem, "Exil”.  I felt tiny–just an element, helpless to nature's kinetic mysteries and diversity.

Nur mit Wind mit Zeit und mit Klang, Anselm Kiefer, 2011
(oil, emulsion, acrylic, shellac, and lead on canvas)

A patron viewing the piece in the Essl

In his works Kiefer addresses the transience of memory, nature and civilisation along with diverse subjects such as Norse mythology with TBC (Hödur) and the structure of the cosmos in Horlogium [Shooting Stars]. This latter piece leads my attention to the centre of the room and its accompaniment piece: Black tape on the floor squares off a section wherein lies scattered fragments around a stack of leaden books, Skulptur mit Sternen [Sculpture with Stars]. The books appear worn, their covers and pages abused with overuse, ready to exhale their restrained words into the ether.

Detail from Anselm Kiefer's TBC (Hödur), with 

reflection of the exhibition room. The art 

appears more natural than its human 

environment.
(oil, emulsion, shellac, branches, mistletoe
leaves and soil on board)

I can understand why the museum's founder, Karlheinz Essl, curated this exhibition on Anselm Kiefer himself. , The pieces are all featured from his own personal collection and carefully presented “in order to make the power, radiance and spirituality of the works tangible and experienceable.”

Kiefer also takes inspiration from religion, with Samson and Ich bin der ich bin [I am who I am], and literature, including 17th century scholar Robert Fludd and the poet Paul Celan. Literary references appear in the title of some pieces, such Tönend wie des Kalbs Haut die Erde [Ringing out, as on the calf’s hide, the earth] from a poem by Friedrich Hölderlin, and are handwritten directly on some works of art themselves. The words of the poet cycled through the mind of the artist, mixed with the gritty elements of nature, blended and painted onto the tensile canvas.

Born in Donaueschingen, Germany on 8 March 1945, shortly before the end of World War II, Kiefer grew up amongst the ruins of the war, which ended up being his childhood playground as he used the rubble to construct little houses. This early influence in his life carried through in his artwork, such as his controversial use of themes relating to his country's guilt and remembrance of World War II.

The cycle of growth, destruction and renewal is evident in work such as The Fertile Crescent, also featured from Essl's collection. The Fertile Crescent being the area in the Middle East considered formative in the development of human culture, wherein early human civilisations developed. Here in Kiefer’s painting, mixed media on a colossal canvas show monumental ruins–civilisation decayed. Perhaps these ruins are only in a moment of transition, as time plays itself out into unknown possibilities.

“Ruins represent the future,” Kiefer states and then comments on his childhood: “The house next to our home was bombed to the ground. I never felt that the debris was something negative. This is just a state of transition, of change, of evolution. The postwar rubble and debris from the big cities cleared up by women, the so-called Trümmerfrauen [rubble women]–a term of almost mythological significance today–is what I employed to build houses. This debris has always been the starting point of something new being conceived.”

The fragility of the organic materials Kiefer uses accompanies the themes of decay, transience and renewal, the physical future of the pieces being uncertain. Besides lead, materials Kiefer uses include oil, acrylic and charcoal as well as more unconventional media such as soil, plaster and mistletoe leaves. In some works, branches, objects and sculpture are affixed to the front of the canvas, providing dimension to the textural surface. Art and nature reach into the controlled space of the museum, as if at any time they could pull you into their world for a change.

"In my pictures I tell stories to show what is behind the story. I open up a hole and I go through it." - Anselm Kiefer 

Walking through the exhibition, winding through the rooms, I waver between observer and element–apart from then a part of–as if we are all interconnected sculptures in transition, works by the greatest artist of the universe. Anselm Kiefer's work would allegedly be contemporary art, but I find it to be of a timeless expression: The present in a dance with the effects of humanity and the past, the mysteries of mythology and the cosmos, and the uncertainty of decay and the future. Artwork that may not only cause one to question its meaning, but leave those questions never fully answered.

Kiefer’s art presents an alchemical, elliptical system: One of civilisation, recollection and fantasy affected by the mysteries of time and transformation.  Each work can be seen as an extract of this system–a moment caught as emotions and interpretations are released. The cycle of nature is endless; a work of art is but a glimpse of the eternal expressed.

Portrait of Anselm Kiefer, above, and the artist in his Paris atelier
(© Renate Graf)

Exile

I am dead, a wanderer
no longer registered anywhere
unknown in the prefect’s domain
of no use in the golden cities
and the greening land

long dispensed with
and provided with no more

than with wind with time and with sound

I who cannot live among people

with the German language
this cloud around me
which I hold as a house
drifting through all languages

Oh how it grows dark
those dark sounds, rain sounds
only a few fall

It will carry the dead into brighter regions


- Ingeborg Bachmann
translation via Project Muse

All artwork in this post © Anselm Kiefer.

Klimt, Ready To Wear

In Vienna, one can't help but feel subtly surrounded by Gustav Klimt – there are Klimt sightings everywhere in the city, and also online, with Klimt-themed shoes, barrettes, espresso cups, bags, jewellery, photoshop brushes, pillows, t-shirts, wallpaper, pens, mugs, mousepads, glassware, furniture, aprons, scarves, neckties, hosiery, a toilet paper holder, a musical... In 2012 the Wien Museum here hosted an exhibition entitled, The Worst of Klimt. A pair of Klimt-covered Nike sports shoes was a part of their adverts. I swear one day I even saw Klimt's companion and model Emilie Flöge herself swiftly walking up a street towards Klimt's former studio in the Josefstadt District, hair puffed out and robe flowing.

While Frau Flöge was a fashion designer in her own right, having a salon with her sister in Vienna, it's Klimt's artwork and design elements that are applied to all of the above and more. L'Wren Scott at London Fashion Week has extended this practice to the runway in her Klimt-inspired clothing, with gold, swirls, snakes and other motifs.

Klimt-inspired look from L'Wren Scott (A/W13)

Klimt (1902), Detail from the Beethoven Frieze.
Photo © Secession, Vienna

Klimt (1900) Rose von Rosthorn Friedmann

The questions at this point could include: Inspiration or imitation? Is imitation really the sincerest form of flattery? I've never really understood the last one, but at this point I'm just looking. What do you see? 

With his many portraits and paintings of women, Klimt does provide many possibilities...

Klimt (1912) Adele Bloch Bauer II

Klimt (1902) Emilie Flöge

Visit klimt.com for galleries of Gustav Klimt's paintings.
L'Wren Scott runway photos: Marcus Tondo/InDigitalteam I Gorunway
Also of interest: Klimt and the Attersee

A Carnation's Regret

A single flower always stands on my small espresso table, and turned into an inevitable subject with my camera nearby on a quiet afternoon. I've never been able to pick a favourite flower, just as I could never choose a favourite colour or song. There is too much to enjoy; the aesthetic elation that accompanies the thrill of a favourite thing can be found when I just choose to appreciate the moment and what it entails. Every song I enjoy is my favourite, just as every flower.

So, I appreciate the humble carnation as well! Well, not so humble, really: they are also referred to as dianthus, from dios and and anthos: the flower of the gods. It is said that a light red carnation represents "admiration", while a white one, "pure love".  A variegated carnation – such as the focus of my little photographic study here – symbolises "regret that a love cannot be shared". Like a flower, love is surely a beautiful thing. It can be expressed in so many ways, grand and subtle, and is always a regret when not truly shared or expressed. Maybe our lives are like the flowers, fleeting, yet reaching up beautifully for the warmth of love.

Rilke's Destiny

"That which we call destiny goes forth from within people, not from without into them. Only because so many have not absorbed their destinies and transmuted them within themselves while they were living in them, have they not recognized what has gone forth out of them; it was so strange to them that, for they swear never before to have found anything like it in themselves. As people were long mistaken about the motion of the sun, so they are even yet mistaken about the motion of that which is to come. The future stands firm...but we move in infinite space." 

- Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

The Secret of the Surfaces

Attempting to capture the evening sun, whose genuine beauty eludes the camera.
The subtle scent of country pine can never truly be captured, as well.

Spending time in the country among pine trees, pale green fields and the magical dimming of the December sun – with sleep alternating between ghostly dreams in a deep slumber and abstract introspection during insomnia –moments of solitude bring a treasured mix of quietude and discomfort. Not a disturbing kind of discomfort...but the kind that brings me closer to myself: who I have been, presently am, and all I can be – all at once, sans soucis. An achievement realised without striving, that also slowly depletes me of the need to defend my ego to others; an accomplishment within without. This solitude is not in the midst of silence, but I can hear the silence nonetheless.

All possibilities are contained in silence. All mysteries reveal themselves in an unspoken feeling of simultaneous connectedness and detachment to all. The sun shines across the evening land, and in the morning everything and everyone looks anew – somehow strange yet beautiful – overwhelming all concerns of life and prior perceptions.

"The basic and most fundamental problem of the spiritual life is this acceptance of our hidden and dark self, with which we tend to identify all the evil that is in us. We must learn by discernment to separate the evil growth of our actions from the good ground of the soul. And we must prepare that ground so that a new life can grow up from it within us, beyond our knowledge and beyond our conscious control. The sacred attitude is, then, one of reverence, awe and silence before the mystery that begins to take place within us when we become aware of our innermost self. In silence, hope, expectation, and unknowing, the man of faith abandons himself to the divine will: not as an arbitrary and magic power whose decrees must be spelled out from cryptic ciphers, but as to the stream of reality and life itself. The sacred attitude is, then, one of deep and fundamental respect for the real in whatever new form it may present itself." 

- Thomas Merton, The Inner Experience: Notes on Contemplation.

"Do not be bewildered by the surfaces; in the depths all becomes law. And those who live the secret wrong and badly (and they are very many), lose it only for themselves and still hand it on, like a sealed letter, without knowing it."

- Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

"In the last analysis what I am looking for in solitude is not happiness or fulfilment but salvation. Not "my own salvation" but the salvation of everybody."

- Thomas Merton, Learning to Love

The Sound of a Thousand Doves

Is what I heard Loreena McKennitt delicately singing in my ears when I took this photo alongside the Moghulhof restaurant in Vienna. The wind carried a lullaby of curry, steamed by the hot sun, and lifting my senses into another place in a timeless escape. My senses escaping to a place rich with timeless fantasies and reveries.

There are visions, there are memories
There are echoes of thundering hooves
There are fires, there is laughter
There's the sound of a thousand doves...

Cascading stars on the slumbering hills
They are dancing as far as the sea
Riding o'er the land, you can feel its gentle hand
Leading on to its destiny…  

Take me with you on this journey
Where the boundaries of time are now tossed  

- Loreena McKennitt, "Night Ride Across The Caucasus"

Wilde Velvet

"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."  – Oscar Wilde

"Every atom in your body was once part of a star"

   -  Andrew King, Professor of Astrophysics

Maybe Chris Bell was in tune with something greater—where music, poetry and the cosmos unite—when he sang:  'Every night I tell myself, "I am the cosmos, I am the wind..."'

La joie de vivre dans le caniveau!
  while lounging dreamily in velvet,
  whispering poetry through the night... 

We can stare at stars
  while we stare at each other,
  for we are all made of stars.

    - Via