The sound of a space song by artist Anselm Kiefer
Anselm Kiefer's creativity has outgrown the levels of interests and desires of an individual, a team and even a country. He feels historical responsibility, he thinks on the scale of the universe. His voice, like the voice of an artist, is heard by the world. His desires and values are consonant with those of all mankind …
The universe is noisy and asks for beauty, The
seas are screaming, splashed with foam, But on the hills of the earth, in the cemeteries of the universe
Only the chosen ones shine flowers.
Am I just me? I am only a brief moment of
Alien existence. Right God, Why did you create the world, both sweet and bloody, And gave me a mind so that I could comprehend it!
Nikolay Zabolotsky, 1957
When the poet Nikolai Zabolotsky wrote the lines of this poem, Anselm Kiefer was 12 years old. Behind the future artist is his post-war childhood in a bombed-out German town, the authoritarian upbringing of his father, who fought and was wounded in Russia. Religious zeal is behind with complete disappointment when the expected enlightenment did not happen after the first communion. Ahead is a search, a battle with oneself and one's contradictions, the study of history, philosophy, mythology, a passion for poetry.
Now it is a world success in life, the glory of one of the most relevant, erudite and creative artists. In spite of everything, in the era of digital technologies, computer and holographic effects, Kiefer's work remains noticeable, because his canvases sound like a special transcendental music.
Anselm Kiefer is one of those artists they say: not for everyone. His paintings are an in-depth study of the struggle between chaos and order. They force one to be collected, attentive, serious, like the films of Bergman, Tarkovsky, like the books of Dostoevsky, Proust, Marquez, the music of Wagner and the poetry of Rilke. With his work, the artist leads an adult, sometimes cruel conversation with the viewer: he does not hide from what may frighten us or seem difficult to understand. His path is in the middle, between where too much order means creative death and too much chaos means madness.
New is born from memory
The German artist was born on March 8, 1945 in the basement of the Donaueschingen hospital. Their house was bombed that night. The boy grew up among the ruins of buildings destroyed by the war, the ruins of the material and spiritual devastation of the German people, the ruins of broken destinies and a divided country.
Little Anselm was not yet concerned with the tragic life of post-war Germany. For him, the ruins meant not the end at all, but the beginning. Children don't judge, they just play: build, break and re-erect. The ruins are what allows you to start over. As a teenager, the boy begins to understand the complexity of the consequences of the war. And his homeland for 45 years from the beginning of the twentieth century managed to survive two defeats. Humiliated by Europe after the First World War, the country hides "clenched fists in his pocket." The harsh, predatory conditions of the Versailles Treaty, which caused instability both economic and social (robberies, theft, and murder flourished in the country), became, to a certain extent, the reason for the Nazis coming to power.
After another 25 years, Germany is also losing in World War II. Now the Nuremberg trials are presenting evidence of crimes to the German society: concentration camps, the Holocaust. It is difficult to imagine the feelings of the Germans who had to recognize themselves as part of a nation that destroyed thousands and thousands of lives. Self-justification is inherent in people, so the recognition of guilt and responsibility for what happened was not an easy process for the Germans. Part of the people of Germany suffered, as Anselm's teacher, the artist Joseph Beuys, wrote, “visual amnesia,” the other drowned in a sense of guilt for what they had done.
Thinly feeling, capable of compassion and empathy, young Kiefer was able to understand these difficult conditions of his compatriots and devote his creativity to trying to reconcile the Germans with the past. He will show the history of the people without accusations, but exposing the painful points of the past war in his works.
The world, as in Zabolotsky's poem, "both sweet and bloody" is the birthplace of Anselm Kiefer. “My biography is the biography of Germany,” the artist would say later. - Homeland is all that I remember. It's not something physical, it's my memory, what's in my head. " Kiefer creates from the material of his childhood, from experience, from the past, the history of the country and humanity.
Vectors destiny
From childhood, the boy wanted to be an artist. His father, an art teacher, named his son Anselm after a classic German painter he admired. Therefore, the boy's desire was partly predetermined by the environment in which he grew up. The house had canvases, brushes, oil, and watercolors. Father opened for him the world of creators and creativity.
The favorable environment and, of course, the inclinations that Anselm Kiefer possessed, directed him to painting. The qualities and properties of two vectors - anal and visual - allow a person to become an artist. Perseverance, meticulousness, a desire to bring work to an ideal state are required - these are the properties of the anal vector. The perception of color, shape, the desire to capture beauty, to share this beauty with other people - these are the properties of the visual vector.
But natural giftedness and environment are also not all that is needed to become a real artist. Only the development of the qualities of the anal-visual ligament of vectors will allow a person to create real art.
By nature, people with a visual vector are given a special sensitivity. They are characterized by impressionability, subtle observation and increased sensitivity to color shades and their compatibility. Learning to draw little Anselm contributed to the development of both imagery and perception of beauty and sensual sphere.
But the petty-bourgeois environment in which Anselm grew up restrained his creative impulses with their religious restrictions and proprietary worldview. The young man dreamed of escape from this world, he was drawn to something impossible, unknown. It was a desire to know the meaning of existence, to feel the connections that connect the elements of nature. This is the manifestation of the properties of the sound vector in a person. The search for different realities, world community, the right to life is reflected in future paintings by Anselm Kiefer, adding depth and scale to his work.
Kiefer not only draws, he thoughtfully explores the history, myths of his country and humanity and turns meaningful material into a source of inspiration. The artist's attraction to history, to the past of his country, of all mankind is a manifestation of the anal vector. Anselm Kiefer is looking for origins, wants to learn from the experience of the past and pass it on to people. His works are filled with German, Greek and Egyptian mythological references, the Old Testament, Kabbalah. The combination of sound, anal, visual vectors supports his desire to look for parallels, for example, between the mathematical model of string theory and the Scandinavian Norns, weaving the fate of people and gods.
To comprehend the secrets of the Universe, to reveal to people a certain truth - this is approximately how you can describe the dreams and values of a person with a sound vector, or a sound engineer. And the work of Anselm Kiefer is just that: it goes far beyond what can be seen with the eyes. There is no unambiguity in his strange paintings - they are multilayered in the literal and figurative sense. The convolutions of meanings inherent in his works, like a compressed spring, unwind, giving rise to a stream of associations for those who are ready to see.
You can read his paintings. The artist combines collage and painting, uses inscriptions, pages, and sometimes entire books. Paper texts, chalk marks, distinct and barely noticeable on the painted surface, are subtly linked to other layers. They seem to vibrate and structure the "chaos" of images and textures.
Touch
Photography, oil, resin, coal, lead, plaster, cardboard, sand, wire and real plants - the artist uses a variety of techniques and materials to create concrete-sensual images to convey an idea. The texture of the painting becomes an expressive means. Complex mixtures of earth, clay mixed with straw and ash are rubbed into the picturesque canvas, creating now a lifeless landscape, now a deserted road, now lonely abandoned buildings. The artist sculpts, forms the matter and space of a concept that he understands. When a glance touches a picture, its complex textured relief, it seems that you are penetrating into the very texture of history: now tattered and bleeding, like paintings about the Holocaust, now rusty and twisted, like ships in works dedicated to the poet Velimir Khlebnikov, now huge and incomprehensible like the sky in Starfall.
Anselm Kiefer is a modern alchemist. It forces the material to regenerate using methods of fusion, etching, firing, electroplating. Kiefer is an experimental artist, he is a rebel, he is a creator and destroyer. The theme of destruction is traced in his works, as the idea of constant renewal, rebirth in nature, in the evolution of mankind. Plastic and pictorial art in his talented hands unites idea and matter into a paradoxical and ambiguous fusion.
Scale
Anselm Kiefer is 75 years old. His whole life is an interest in art and passion for creativity. Long and reliably provided (his paintings are sold for millions of dollars), not experiencing external pressure, he continues to create. Inspirational. Free. No compulsion.
What gives him strength? His mature, fulfilled personality. Understanding your purpose and the importance of moving forward. Not thoughtless and by inertia, but meaningful, coming from an internal need.
Such a depth and scale of personality is given by a high level of development of the sound vector. The volume of innate desires in a person with a sound vector is the largest, compared to the volume of the psyche of other vectors. For the sound engineer, the scope of desires is natural, for his thought there is no size, and it is capable of penetrating beyond the Universe. This is the need of people with a sound vector - to pose new questions for humanity. This is their property - to be able to think globally, because solving such problems brings them tremendous pleasure.
The breadth of Anselm Kiefer's scope reflects the scale of his values and the worldview problems that disturb and determine his artistic thinking. The artist believes that "art is a place where you can ask yourself questions." With his work, he addresses these difficult questions to us, the audience, opening our minds and hearts, forcing us to feel and think. His creative dialogue is not with himself, but with others. These are messages written for us. They are addressed to the community of people.
This inner sound desire - to embrace the impossible, to find the hidden - prompts the German artist to seek new inspiration and new means of expression for his works, to combine the incompatible. Kiefer folds, condenses, generalizes meanings to picturesque material images and places them on his canvases.
The powerful influence of Anselm Kiefer's creativity is not only in the alchemical transmutation of materials. The size of his canvases is simply enormous. They are monumental. The viewer literally finds himself inside the space of the picture, becomes a part of the depicted world. Both the one who first entered the vaults of the Cologne Cathedral and the one who found themselves in front of Kiefer's large-scale works experience an inexpressible thrill and shock. This sense of boundlessness awakens the idea of sublimity, includes emotions and, as Kant said in his Critique of Practical Reason, “… fills my spirit with growing admiration and respect …”.
The scale in relation to the personality is the values of the person. Anselm Kiefer's creativity has outgrown the levels of interests and desires of an individual, a team and even a country. He feels historical responsibility, he thinks on the scale of the universe. His voice, like the voice of an artist, is heard by the world. His desires and values are consonant with those of all mankind.
Art is a way to make a situation obvious
How many people understand that there are hundreds of different possibilities in life and that we ourselves are building our own path, giving up something in favor of something. When a creative person creates his work, be it a writer, sculptor, artist, designer, he has many options to choose from: how the story ends or what detail will become the main one in the picture. We always have to make decisions. Choosing one path, we refuse other opportunities. And right now this question is relevant for humanity.
Anselm Kiefer's art is not only about the past, it is also about the future. This is the question: what will humanity choose?
