"Nigredo," 1984, by Anselm Kiefer Author(s): Ann Temkin Source: Philadelphia Museum of Art Bulletin, Vol. 86, No.

365/366, Gifts from the Friends of the Museum, 1985-90 (Spring, 1990), pp. 25-26 Published by: Philadelphia Museum of Art Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3795412 . Accessed: 29/03/2014 09:29
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Nigredo, i984 AnselmKiefer

Withaustere AnselmKiefer's monumentality, furrowed landscape, Nigredo, adds an epic noteto theMuseum'stwentieth-century collections. Painted on an i i by I 8 footcanvas, it commands enormous space,disturbingly literal, as a bleak,decaying expanse,and yet richwithallusionto Germany's history and cultural The artist thatthe heritage. reports painting was inspired by a field of peatin Ireland, butitsreference forKiefer's audience is inevitably thesoil of Germany. That soil at once represents thecountry's identity and bearswitness of conflict to centuries and devastation. AnselmKiefer was bornin 1945, in the Donaueschingen regionof southern Germany alongtheDanube, neartheBlack and Oden He beganto study artin i966, abanforests. in law.As a of a career doningthoughts Kiefer decidedto explorein his youngartist worktheissueof Germany's recent and ancient The choicewas highly history. Sincetheend of World WarII the charged. nation had been involved less in an German examination of itspastthanin an effort at collective and itsattention to the forgetting "economicmiracle" of thepostwar decades. After thewar,artists' debatesaboutthemerits realist of abstract versus artdid notanswer the fundamental of how to beginagain question in lightof therecent past. The first of artists, postwar generation did introduce to this,the however, exceptions workofJoseph Beuys (I92i-i986) beingthe mostimportant amongthem.Beuys'shighly controversial workgalvanized his German

Fromthetimehe was a student, Kiefer had explored theGerman landscape as subject, is one of the symbol, and medium.Nigredo mostfearsome representations of thistheme. Kiefer beganthepainting by applying a huge photograph of a landscape to thecanvas.He thenworked overit withoil, acrylic, emulsion,and shellac, addingstraw to serveas the stubble of a harvested cropprotruding from therowsof thefield, whichperspectively a highhorizon.It also includes retreats toward blackfragments of a woodcutstapled across theforeground. These blackshards coveran areathat had represented train initially tracks; now thecollaged elements embodyrocksoverturned by thebladesof a strong plow.While thesteepperspective drawstheeyetoward the landscape, thelayers of paintand straw theprocessand sensuousmateemphasize of thepainting, attention to riality returning A luminous theflat surface of theworkitself. gray skyradiates abovethedarkened field.In thewordnigredo is theupper-left corner in a casualhand-transforming scrawled the pictorial planeintoa larger field of ideas. refers theviewerto thecenturiesNigredo of alchemy, a practice old tradition by which suchas earth itwas believed that base matter intogold. Origior stonecouldbe converted
Fig. i AnselmKiefer Palette with Wings
i985

Lead, steel,and tin Museum of Philadelphia withfunds Art.Purchased contributed by various donors.
i989-89-I IHO1/4X I37 3/4 X 39 3/8" (280 X 3 50 x I00 cm)

inthei960s and 1970S on thebasis audience

of itsdeliberate confrontation of Germany's distinct cultural and spiritual Draheritage. maticsculptures and "actions"(performances) provocatively engagedtheissuesof memory and loss. Beuys taught at theStaatliche in Dusseldorf fromI96I to Kunstakademie becauseof his 1972, whenhe was dismissed In 1971, increasingly politicized activity. enrolled at theacademy, whilenot actually Kiefer of his beganto visitBeuys forcritiques work.Beuys becamea mentor to Kiefer, as an inspiration mostimportantly for serving his conviction that theartist could and should tackle themes central to thecollective psyche and that theartist has a moralmission in
society.

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Ginkgo, i989 SigmarPolke

in theMiddleAges, and surrounded The shimmering nating surface of SigmarPolke's by great secrecy, thepractice of alchemy is bothsplendid and mysterious, a Ginkgo continued forseveral centuries. Alchemists gold, cobaltviolet, sensuouswhirlof silver, straddled thepoles of scientist and priest, and and amber.These colorsoccurin great pools their chemical had experiments ultimately and swishes,pouring overand acrossthesupspiritual goals. independent campaigns. portin seemingly is theinitial Nigredo phasein thealchemical The exoticpigments layers of infuse multiple process.It represents theunification of the resinand lacquer, whichtogether synthetic two oppositeelements essential to alchemical buildup theglassyplanethatconfronts the transformation-the solarmale and lunar viewer. The picture's support-two long female-in the"alchemical furnace." This a virpanelsof wovenpolyester-provides unification leadsto a liquidstate of blackness tually base on whichtheselayers transparent and chaos.Base matter passesthrough this assumetheir strangely ambiguousdepth.In darkstageto emergefinally witha glow of theshifting nature of thelightworks daylight, radiant light.This light notonlyindicates the withthetransparency of thesurface to protransformation of matter but also impliesthe duce a painting thatrefuses to staystill, and of thecreative overtheuniver- continues triumph spirit theprocessof itscreation. sal process of decay. SigmarPolke was bornin I94I in Oels, By characterizing his painting as Nigredo, LowerSilesia,whichis now a partof Poland. Kiefer has made a comment on his own work He studied at theStaatliche Kunstakademie in in thepicture, as wellas an allusionto his fromi96i to i967. Whilea stuDusseldorf visionof thepainter's role.Kiefer's methodof denthe workedwiththeartists Gerhard thepicture forms an obviousparallel Richter making in a and KonradFischer-Lueg to thealchemical thedarksurface of movement knownas "Capitalist process: Realism," and paintsuggests straw, shellac, theburning whichresponded to American and British and decomposing that characterize thenigredo Pop artby appropriating theelements and phaseofalchemy. Indeed,in pictures that of mass culture to subvert itsown techniques Kiefer increased theuse he made followed, as well as thoseof highart. conventions of burning, and layering, melting, generally Duringthelatei960s, Polke developed thephysical of his transforming thevocabulary forwhichhe becamebest properties materials. The reference to alchemy has composedfroma known,makingpaintings further forKiefer's artas he implications assortment of imagesgarcrazily disjunctive implicitly compares theworkof thealchemist neredfromtheoutsideworld-newspaper to that of thepainter. He suggests that likethe photographs, filmstills, cartoons, rarebooks, theartist is one who transforms and advertisements. a collage alchemist, By projecting materials and thereby offers a routetoward of thesesourceson a surface and selectively moralwisdom. overthem,he provided dissonant painting Kiefer thisquestin Palette with represents thatsturdily and incongruous imagery a sculpture Wings, recently resisted acquired by the (fig.I). logicalinterpretation Museum (fig.i). Here,theaspirations of the In theearlyi980s, Polkebeganto work areairborne: a largepalette is carried in an abstract painter seemedto be mode that initially aloft in gray a great his earlier by two spreading wingsworked from style.He departure lead. These wings,however, havea heavyand beganto exploretheworldof pigments, mintimeworn thanNigredo, erals,dyes,and chemicals as obsessively as he aspect.More directly Palette with addresses theartist's Wings perhad plumbedtheworldof printed imagery. between constraints Polke'sfascination petualstruggle withthecapacities of both earthly and lofty a themethat underlies natural and themysand synthetic aspirations, materials, all of Kiefer's work. has givenriseto an of their teries workings, on astonishing body of work.Polkeinsists AnnTemkin nature of thesepaintings, theexperimental as twoand theymight be characterized dimensional laboratories fortheartist. retain a senseof The new paintings mobility and fluidity thatseemsinconsistent
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