Untitled, 2007. Here the sense that the spiritual might represent some sort of escape from earth's darkness seems especially clear.
Above, Untitled (Sunflowers) 1996, and Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom. Kiefer has often painted flowers, but always completely drained of color and often of life.
These railroad images, another theme, are Nazi references. Kiefer has been trying for his whole career to get his fellow Germans to think about Nazism and their part in its crimes; his first works that attracted any attention were photographs of himself giving the Nazi salute in front of public buildings in Germany. Above, Lot's Wife, 1989.
I have seen the Land of the Fog, I have eaten the Heart of the Fog, 1997.
San Loreto, 2001. Kiefer's spirituality is not the sunny kind; he is attracted to the angriest of the Hebrew prophets, and his angels seem indistinguishable from demons.
From the Beginning, 2002. I like a phrase I read somewhere to describe his work, "grim extravagance."
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