Anselm Kiefer
Today was the last day of an exhibit at SF MOMA which I’d been promising myself I’d go see for at least the last four months. I hadn’t been to MOMA yet for the very simple reason that, although I love museums generally, I have a distinct aversion to modern art. The sight of the Anselm Kiefer posters was the only thing able to lure me there and I am so glad that it did.
Putting little pictures on livejournal is a disservice to the works. The originals were usually around 12 x 12 feet and extremely textured. The winged book (featured below) had a wingspan of roughly 12 feet.
Anselm Kiefer has just shot up into the top tier of my favorite artists, an amazing feat for someone who didn’t die hundreds of years ago. His thematic preoccupations are knowledge, mysticism, heaven, humanity and spiritual matters intersecting with, but not necessarily bowing to, Judeo-Christian tradition. These themes are difficult to work with and all too often end up as trite drivel. His work was amazingly powerful and anything but trite. Born in Germany in 1945, his work is haunted by the horror of WWII and the holocaust.
In “Die Ordnung Der Engel,” he depicts the 9 types of angels described by Dionysius the Areopagate. Each angel is represented as a meteorite protruding from the canvas and dominating the upper left is an airplane propeller which suggests not only Dionyius’ description of heaven as “whirling and spinning,” but the air raids and Hitler’s assertions about the necessity to rule the skies.
Another favorite of mine was a large canvas which seemed to depict an indistinct staircase winding its way across a dark sky. Some of the stairs protruded from the canvas by a full foot and on them rested charred books which had been partially consumed by fire, but were still recognizable as books. Very powerful. Particularly in contrast to the sculpture of the winged book . . .
There was another huge canvas depicting a bright, almost traditional landscape, but which was covered with a storm of black specks, like soot raining down from Mount Vesuvius. Closer inspection revealed that the black specks were thousands of sunflower seeds adhered to the canvas.
I am sorry that I waited until the last day to attend this exhibit since it means that I can’t drag everyone else to go see it; however, you should all file his name away in the back of your brains and try to see some of his works if the opportunity ever presents itself.
Putting little pictures on livejournal is a disservice to the works. The originals were usually around 12 x 12 feet and extremely textured. The winged book (featured below) had a wingspan of roughly 12 feet.
Anselm Kiefer has just shot up into the top tier of my favorite artists, an amazing feat for someone who didn’t die hundreds of years ago. His thematic preoccupations are knowledge, mysticism, heaven, humanity and spiritual matters intersecting with, but not necessarily bowing to, Judeo-Christian tradition. These themes are difficult to work with and all too often end up as trite drivel. His work was amazingly powerful and anything but trite. Born in Germany in 1945, his work is haunted by the horror of WWII and the holocaust.
In “Die Ordnung Der Engel,” he depicts the 9 types of angels described by Dionysius the Areopagate. Each angel is represented as a meteorite protruding from the canvas and dominating the upper left is an airplane propeller which suggests not only Dionyius’ description of heaven as “whirling and spinning,” but the air raids and Hitler’s assertions about the necessity to rule the skies.
Another favorite of mine was a large canvas which seemed to depict an indistinct staircase winding its way across a dark sky. Some of the stairs protruded from the canvas by a full foot and on them rested charred books which had been partially consumed by fire, but were still recognizable as books. Very powerful. Particularly in contrast to the sculpture of the winged book . . .
There was another huge canvas depicting a bright, almost traditional landscape, but which was covered with a storm of black specks, like soot raining down from Mount Vesuvius. Closer inspection revealed that the black specks were thousands of sunflower seeds adhered to the canvas.
I am sorry that I waited until the last day to attend this exhibit since it means that I can’t drag everyone else to go see it; however, you should all file his name away in the back of your brains and try to see some of his works if the opportunity ever presents itself.