Anselm Kiefer is one of my favorite painters. His paintings depict derelict buildings, tomblike interiors, and stale, musty spaces. They (the paintings) are very historical: he is probably the most famous German neo-expressionist to deal with the Holocaust. He seems very honest to me-- and he doesn't look at history delicately. This is the one I want to look at today:
It's called Dem ubekannten Maler, or To the Unknown Painter. The thing about Kiefer is that almost his entire body of work wrestles with the Holocaust and its impact and implications. And in post-WW2 Europe, just after that brief period of artistic silence, when Theodor Adorno said that "to write a poem after Auschwitz is barbaric," every German artist had to deal with the fact that their home nation had supported such heinous genocide. It was literally unavoidable. And for Kiefer, who is still painting-- he's pretty old now, though-- it is still unavoidable.To the Unknown Painter asks the boldest, most honest, and patently horrible question an artist in his situation could ask: had the holocaust not happened, what would I have painted? What would the content of my work have been? If I weren't so inextricably entangled in my own nation's history, what would my art even look like? Critics took this as a repugnant display of self-pity, but I think it's a legitimate question. Kiefer's response to the holocaust contributed some of the most breathtaking art of the 20th century. If not for deep-rooted sorrow and shame for Deutschland, would Kiefer have had such a source of emotion to draw from and create his art? He is a true talent, so surely his art would have been good, but would it have been this good? And that is the place that I can plainly see the force of Good laughing in the face of Bad: the passion of Kiefer's grief births a sublime beauty that-- knowingly or not-- initiates the healing process.
Of course, I must (pitifully) draw connections to our own lives. Despite the fact that dwelling on the hypothetical is usually unhealthy, would you be the same without the personal tragedies of your past? Of course not. Have they shaped your art (if you make it) or your life (if you live it)? Of course they have... of course they have. And while it seems almost blasphemous to compare the small trifles of our American lives to the nightmare that was Auschwitz, the comparison is still there, feeble as it is (so feel free to disregard the vanity and egocentrism of this final idea... I wouldn't blame you).
"What interests me is the transformation, not the monument. I don't construct ruins... A ruin is not a catastrophe. It is a moment when things can start again. A treasure we all admire, a gift to the Earth." - Anselm Kiefer
"I had seen birth and death, / But had thought they were different." - T. S. Eliot, from "The Journey of the Magi"
2 comments:
"...the passion of Kiefer's grief births a sublime beauty that-- knowingly or not -- initiates the healing process."
Brilliant.
I don't think it's as weak a connection as you might think.
"All things are wearisome, more than one can say. The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing. What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which one can say, "Look! This is something new"? It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time." -Ecclesiastes 8:1-10
This makes me think of chaos theory - every theme we draw from our experiences mirrors some other theme drawn from some other experience. Isn't that what art is? Isn't that the point of poetry? Of prose, even? These are all attempts at representing or recreating some experience. Occasionally we come across some piece that we are able to connect with because we have shared in that particular feeling. You're absolutely right, Lindsey: without experiences, connection would be impossible.
I know for me, looking at some tragedy worse than what I've gone through, studying it, even, has helped me understand my own feelings, and, as you said, this "initiates the healing process."
thanks for the thoughtful comments, Kirby. I always like reading what you have to say. And it seems like you often have an appropriate verse from Ecclesiastes to respond to my posts... haha... and I wonder what this says about me and my ideas? Probably that I'm too existential...
However. I still stand by my opinion that the connection is weak, only because the two (the Jewish Holocaust and 21st century American personal sufferings) are so wildly disproportionate. I think for the tone of this entry not to be totally inappropriate, it was important to downplay the connection as much as possible. If I weren't apologetic about the point I was making, I think it would feel like I was exploiting a tragedy for the sake of a blog entry. And the tone of this comment must be apologetic as well, because you didn't ask for such an earful, but I gave you one.
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