Lot Essay
In 1981 Kiefer began a series of works that due to the symbolic physical fragility of the material introduced (straw), became a vehicle to express the artist's sense of the history and the fate of Germany.
Within the series, no theme ever occupied Kiefer so deeply as that of Margarete and Sulamith, a subject founded on a haunting memorial to the holocaust, the poem Todesfuge, (Death Fuge), by Paul Celan. A Romanian Jew, Celan wrote the poem in 1945 whilst in a concentration camp, where he was the only member of his family to survive.
... A man lives in the house he plays with the serpents
he writes he writes when dusk falls to Germany
your golden hair Margarete
your ashen hair Sulamith we dig a grave in the breezes
there one lies unconfined ...
... He calls out jab deeper into the earth you lot
you other sing now and play
he grabs at the iron in his belt he waves it his eyes
are blue
jab deeper you lot with your spades you others play on
for the dance ...
... He calls out more clearly now stroke your strings
then as smoke you will rise into air ...
... your golden hair Margarete
your ashen hair Sulamith
(Paul Celan, Poems, trans. Michael Hamburger, New York 1980, pp. 50-53.)
In the poem two figures are contrasted and gradually become the central metaphor. Margarete is the one to whom the German guard writes his love letters, her blonde hair evoking the Aryan identity. In contrast Sulamith is the Jewish woman who is digging her grave in the sky, who is made to work and dance for the guard. Sulamith's hair is black owing to her race, but turned ashen from the burning.
Although Dein aschenes Haar, Sulamith is dedicated to Sulamith, Kiefer, as does Celan, makes a point of implying the presence of the other in his work and himself develops characterizations for the two women. In the present work, for example, both Sulamith and Margarete have luxuriant cascades of hair. Margarete's hair is represented by golden straw in the lower section of the work, whilst Sulamith's hair is painted an ashen grey in the upper half.
By representing both figures in the work Kiefer is not only visually reincarnating the poem but expressing his own personal view that Germany maimed both itself and its civilization by destroying its Jewish members. By frequently alluding to both women he attempts to make Germany whole again. Sulamith's naked body is juxtaposed against an urban environment to imply that the horrific acts befalling her are those perpetrated by normal society against a defenceless victim. In contrast Margarete is evoked by straw. She is the ideal noble soul. Tied to the land, she emphasizes her forebearers love and respect for it. However, by echoing this fondly held view of the turn of the century German country-side, Kiefer is ridiculing it, rendering it bankrupt, as he portrays the land as having been blackened and soiled.
Within the series, no theme ever occupied Kiefer so deeply as that of Margarete and Sulamith, a subject founded on a haunting memorial to the holocaust, the poem Todesfuge, (Death Fuge), by Paul Celan. A Romanian Jew, Celan wrote the poem in 1945 whilst in a concentration camp, where he was the only member of his family to survive.
... A man lives in the house he plays with the serpents
he writes he writes when dusk falls to Germany
your golden hair Margarete
your ashen hair Sulamith we dig a grave in the breezes
there one lies unconfined ...
... He calls out jab deeper into the earth you lot
you other sing now and play
he grabs at the iron in his belt he waves it his eyes
are blue
jab deeper you lot with your spades you others play on
for the dance ...
... He calls out more clearly now stroke your strings
then as smoke you will rise into air ...
... your golden hair Margarete
your ashen hair Sulamith
(Paul Celan, Poems, trans. Michael Hamburger, New York 1980, pp. 50-53.)
In the poem two figures are contrasted and gradually become the central metaphor. Margarete is the one to whom the German guard writes his love letters, her blonde hair evoking the Aryan identity. In contrast Sulamith is the Jewish woman who is digging her grave in the sky, who is made to work and dance for the guard. Sulamith's hair is black owing to her race, but turned ashen from the burning.
Although Dein aschenes Haar, Sulamith is dedicated to Sulamith, Kiefer, as does Celan, makes a point of implying the presence of the other in his work and himself develops characterizations for the two women. In the present work, for example, both Sulamith and Margarete have luxuriant cascades of hair. Margarete's hair is represented by golden straw in the lower section of the work, whilst Sulamith's hair is painted an ashen grey in the upper half.
By representing both figures in the work Kiefer is not only visually reincarnating the poem but expressing his own personal view that Germany maimed both itself and its civilization by destroying its Jewish members. By frequently alluding to both women he attempts to make Germany whole again. Sulamith's naked body is juxtaposed against an urban environment to imply that the horrific acts befalling her are those perpetrated by normal society against a defenceless victim. In contrast Margarete is evoked by straw. She is the ideal noble soul. Tied to the land, she emphasizes her forebearers love and respect for it. However, by echoing this fondly held view of the turn of the century German country-side, Kiefer is ridiculing it, rendering it bankrupt, as he portrays the land as having been blackened and soiled.