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Lot Essay
‘Alchemy is not to make gold, the real alchemist is not interested in material things but in transubstantiation, in transforming the spirit. It’s a spiritual thing more than a material thing. An alchemist puts the phenomena of the world in another context.’ – Anselm Kiefer
‘I like to treat inanimate things such as stones as if they were living things, and to treat vivid, living people as if they were stones, I like this too.’ – Anselm Kiefer
Painted in 2007, Anselm Kiefer’s Brünhildes Fels (Brünhilde’s Rock), is an evocative depiction of a terrestrial mythology. Overwhelming much of the large canvas is a close detailing of a rocky outcrop; each boulder is made up of a thick swirl of textured grey and brown. The almost encrusted, impasto paint resembles the sediment it depicts, and this heavy application is characteristic of Kiefer’s work. In the centre of the canvas’s upper edge a small crest, a single line, of orange fames crowns the tops of these rocks. The painting’s subject comes from Wagner’s The Ring of the Nibelung, a motif Kiefer has repeatedly reinterpreted. In this presentation of the Norse myth, the Valkyrie Brünhilde is imprisoned in a ring of fames and sentenced to an infinite sleep after
she defies Odin. After an arduous journey, Siegfried, the hero of The Ring cycle, defies the magical fames and awakens Brünhilde. Throughout his career, Kiefer has repeatedly invoked Brünhilde: works from this extensive series are held in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Museum Küppersmühle. As with Brünhildes Fels, these canvases do not necessarily illustrate the myth in obvious ways: for example, in Siegfried’s Dificult Way to Brünnhilde, circa 1980, in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Siegfried’s journey is symbolized by an abandoned railway dotted with painterly white daubs. Much of Kiefer’s practice is concerned with reconciling German identity in the aftermath of World War II, and he is particularly fascinated by the way signs and stories were co-opted, abused and swallowed up by history. The author Karl Ove Knausgård wrote that through his art, Kiefer ‘[seeks] to grasp the timeless, and install it here amongst us’ (K. Ove Knausgård, ‘Tándaeadéi!’ Anselm Kiefer: Transition from Cool to Warm, exh. cat., Gagosian Gallery, London, 2017, p. 31). Doing so, the rocks of Brünhildes Fels are suggestive not only of Siegfried’s odyssey, but also wartime rubble, itself a nightmarish landscape. Kiefer’s practice is often described as alchemical, owing in part to the artist’s fascination with the transcendence of materials as a creative process. This is reflected in the ways he folds meaning into a painting’s ecology, into the conception of land which is so essential to the German psyche, but also through his ability to make historical knowledge profoundly resonant and communal. The alchemist’s role is not to transform rock into gold, but rather to ‘become an intermediary through which the actions of cosmic forces manifest themselves’ (D. Arasse, Anselm Kiefer, New York, 2010, p. 239). Entwined within Brünhildes Fels are whole histories and temporalities, layers of meaning which permeate each brushstroke and gesture.
‘I like to treat inanimate things such as stones as if they were living things, and to treat vivid, living people as if they were stones, I like this too.’ – Anselm Kiefer
Painted in 2007, Anselm Kiefer’s Brünhildes Fels (Brünhilde’s Rock), is an evocative depiction of a terrestrial mythology. Overwhelming much of the large canvas is a close detailing of a rocky outcrop; each boulder is made up of a thick swirl of textured grey and brown. The almost encrusted, impasto paint resembles the sediment it depicts, and this heavy application is characteristic of Kiefer’s work. In the centre of the canvas’s upper edge a small crest, a single line, of orange fames crowns the tops of these rocks. The painting’s subject comes from Wagner’s The Ring of the Nibelung, a motif Kiefer has repeatedly reinterpreted. In this presentation of the Norse myth, the Valkyrie Brünhilde is imprisoned in a ring of fames and sentenced to an infinite sleep after
she defies Odin. After an arduous journey, Siegfried, the hero of The Ring cycle, defies the magical fames and awakens Brünhilde. Throughout his career, Kiefer has repeatedly invoked Brünhilde: works from this extensive series are held in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Museum Küppersmühle. As with Brünhildes Fels, these canvases do not necessarily illustrate the myth in obvious ways: for example, in Siegfried’s Dificult Way to Brünnhilde, circa 1980, in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Siegfried’s journey is symbolized by an abandoned railway dotted with painterly white daubs. Much of Kiefer’s practice is concerned with reconciling German identity in the aftermath of World War II, and he is particularly fascinated by the way signs and stories were co-opted, abused and swallowed up by history. The author Karl Ove Knausgård wrote that through his art, Kiefer ‘[seeks] to grasp the timeless, and install it here amongst us’ (K. Ove Knausgård, ‘Tándaeadéi!’ Anselm Kiefer: Transition from Cool to Warm, exh. cat., Gagosian Gallery, London, 2017, p. 31). Doing so, the rocks of Brünhildes Fels are suggestive not only of Siegfried’s odyssey, but also wartime rubble, itself a nightmarish landscape. Kiefer’s practice is often described as alchemical, owing in part to the artist’s fascination with the transcendence of materials as a creative process. This is reflected in the ways he folds meaning into a painting’s ecology, into the conception of land which is so essential to the German psyche, but also through his ability to make historical knowledge profoundly resonant and communal. The alchemist’s role is not to transform rock into gold, but rather to ‘become an intermediary through which the actions of cosmic forces manifest themselves’ (D. Arasse, Anselm Kiefer, New York, 2010, p. 239). Entwined within Brünhildes Fels are whole histories and temporalities, layers of meaning which permeate each brushstroke and gesture.