Anselm (2023)

[bunniefuu]

The Women of Antiquity

Octavia, Poppaea, Julia Maesa ...

We may be the nameless

and forgotten ones,

but we don't forget a thing.

Uriel...

Gabriel and ...

Raphael.

And there is Michael.

Ladybird fly home,

your father is at w*r,

your mother is in Pomerania,

Pomerania has all burnt down,

so sleep, baby, sleep.

BAD CHILDREN'S CELL

For P.C. and M.H.

Paul Celan and Martin Heidegger.

Templum,

that means: language

the House of Being.

1 spilled the night out of a pot,

it wasn't night in there enough

for Paul Celan

Wolf's-bean' by Paul Celan

You flowers of Germany,

oh, my heart becomes

crystal incorruptible,

in which light tests itself.

Lock the door.

There are roses in the house.

There are seven roses in the house.

In the Ukraine,

where they m*rder*d

my father and mother:

what flowers were there?

What flower, Mother,

hurt you there with its name?

You, Mother, who said 'wolf's-bean',

not 'lupine'.

Mother, whose hand did I clasp

as I went with your words to Germany?

Mother, murderers live there.

Mother, they're silent.

Mother, they're writing poems.

Mother,

no one silences the murderers!

How difficult

it must have been for Paul Celan,

a jewish poet, to have to

write in the German language!

After all, both mother and father

fell victim to the Holocaust.

Death-Fugue

Black milk of dawn

we drink you evenings

we drink you at noon and on mornings

we drink you at night

we drink and we drink

we dig a grave in the winds

where one lies at ease

A man lives in the house

who plays with the snakes

who writes

who writes when it darkens

to Germany

your golden hair Margarete

he writes it and steps

in front of his house

and the stars glisten

and he whistles his dogs to come

he whistles his jews to appear

lets a grave be dug in the earth

He shouts stab deeper

into the earth you there

you others

play on for the dance

he grabs the g*n in his belt

he draws it his eyes are blue

stab deeper your spades there

you others play on for the dance

Black milk of dawn

we drink you at night

we drink you at noon and on mornings,

we drink you evenings

we drink you and drink

aman lives in the house

your golden hair Margarete

your ashen hair Shulamit

he plays with the snakes

He calls out play death more sweetly

death is a master from Germany

he calls

scrape those fiddles more darkly

then as smoke you'll rise in the air

then you'll have a grave in the clouds

there one lies at ease

Black milk of dawn

we drink you at night

we drink you at noon

death is a master from Germany

we drink you evenings and mornings

we drink and we drink

death is a master from Deutschland

his eye is blue

he strikes you with lead b*ll*ts

his aim is true

aman lives in the house

your golden hair Margarete

he sets his dogs on us

he gifts us a grave in the air

he plays with the snakes

and he dreams

death is a master from Germany

your golden hair Margarete

your ashen hair Shulamit

This is the Martin Heidegger book.

Here you see

the brain of Martin Heidegger

in my attic in Hornbach,

and these are

all poisonous mushrooms

which then cause a cancer

to grow in the brain.

Now there is already

a slight darkening,

and here you see

how the cancer is spreading.

It becomes bigger,

almost taking over half the brain.

And now the cancer is all over.

Heidegger,

I could have even met in person,

when I was studying in Freiburg.

He taught there at the same time.

Paul Celan met with him once,

in the mid-60s,

in his remote cabin

in the Black Forest.

What did he expect from the visit

with the German thinker?

Some explanation

of his n*zi past?

Into the guest book, Celan wrote:

In the cabin book,

with a view of the fountain star

and a hope in the heart

for a word to come

25 July 1967.

But such a word never came.

Nothing but silence

from the great philosopher.

Nothing about his errors.

The whole of society was silent then,

all failed to grasp the unimaginable.

I myself lived among people

who had all been around

and didn't want to talk about it.

Now we try this one.

Let's take off the fern,

the big one at least.

This one we bring to the front.

Ludwig, across like that.

Wiestaw, alcohol...

Ok, good.

Careful.

At the bottom!

SKY...PAINTING...EARTH

Dear Josef Beuys,

Thank you

for your quick reply to my letter.

I'm glad you agreed

to look at my paintings.

I'll soon be on my way

from the Odenwald

to you in Diisseldorf...

Joseph Beuys,

at the Dusseldorf Academy,

had many

subsequently successful students.

As early as 1972, he wanted to

save the forest with them.

Here, with the young Anselm Kiefer,

whom he quickly made

a master student.

Mr. Kiefer, you live

deep in the Odenwald,

far from the hectic pace

of everyday life.

Is this a better way to work,

a kind of retreat?

I live here because I need

the landscape for my work.

I work with the landscape.

Of course, it's also beneficial

that it's peaceful here,

and that I have few disruptions.

I can occupy a big house

which would be

more difficult in the city.

At the Biennale Anselm Kiefer

is representing

the artistic position of the FRG.

This choice is

a big misunderstanding.

The museum director maybe thought

he had found another Neue Wilde',

as the German

neo-expressionists are called.

But with his history slander,

that isn't what Anselm Kiefer is.

At most he is a new reactionary.

Ways of World Wisdom'

is written on a giant woodcut.

And what are these ways called?

Kiefer's German nationalist answer:

The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest".

Grabbe is surely not suspected

to be a German nationalist

or a chauvinist.

Yes, but the subject was so strongly

utilised by the Nazis...

- Yes, totally abused.

But that's just why,

because I was born in 1945,

I have the chance to take up

this subject again.

There's no use in suppressing it,

just because the Nazis abused it.

POPPY AND MEMORY

This is beautiful,

Ludwig! It's getting there!

BED MEMORY

Herr Kiefer, a little lower?

Lower, so it doesn't splash so much.

But I want it to splash, at first.

America has a new superstar:

Anselm Kiefer.

The start of his retrospective

in Chicago

was celebrated

as the art event of the year.

An international Kiefer symposium

simply added to the success

in Los Angeles.

The MoMA in New York

will now bestow the greatest honors.

85 paintings, books and drawings

are included in the show.

Palette with Wings', 1985,

a symbol of liberation

alluding to the greek figure of Icarus,

and Wieland the Smith,

the dangerous mage

of Norwegian legend.

A hall of honour modelled on

prominent n*zi architecture

such as the Reich Chancellery

by Albert Speer.

While Kiefer pushes a painful

boundary for his fellow Germans,

foreigners welcome him

as a bold taboo breaker.

It is perhaps easier to completely

surrender to the spell of his art,

than to observe it with detachment.

With Kiefer, in a most shocking way,

landscape painting is possible again.

"You can't just paint a landscape when

tanks have driven through it", he says.

Now!

I remember, almost 20 years ago,

I was disturbed

by a performance

which you called Occupations'.

You performed the n*zi salute

on European sites.

What was that about?

Was it just a provocation?

BETWEEN SUMMER

AND AUTUMN 1969,

I OCCUPIED SWITZERLAND,

FRANCE AND ITALY.

A FEW PHOTOS:

It wasn't a provocation,

at least it wasn't meant to be.

Not a provocation

just for the sake of it.

I did what I thought

was absolutely necessary at the time.

In hindsight, I think

this act was very important.

It was during a time, 1968/69,

when the whole subject of

World w*r Il,

fascism, the Third-Reich

was not addressed at all.

In school, we had it for three weeks

and that was it.

At this time,

it was very important

to bring this all back into memory

and work on it.

I held a mirror up to everyone's face.

"The Argonauts were

the most famous Greek heroes.

Jason called them together

to accompany him

on his great journey.

To do so,

he had the fastest boat built

to ever sail the seas:

The Argos, equipped with 50 oars.

With this ship

and his friends" help

he wanted to bring the Golden Fleece

back home from the end of the world.

Like a god,

Jason strode across the field of Ares,

took the dragon's teeth

from his helmet

and sowed them in the furrows.

And the Argonauts watched

from the end of the field

as behind Jason

a whole army of warriors

arose from the ground.

Art and mythology

are different forms of recognition.

Myth provides answers

to the questions

of where we come from,

where we are going,

what we are.

You are dust,

and to dust you shall return.

Over your cities grass will grow.

The greatest myth

is the human race itself.

Lilith...

has always preoccupied me.

In Jewish mythology,

she was Adam's first wife,

like Adam,

created from the dust of the earth.

She felt equal to him and did not see

why she should be inferior to him,

or lie beneath him.

The first marriage dispute

was already a myth.

Lilith has been demonized ever since.

She's said to have fled

from the Garden of Eden,

a restless demon of vengeance,

threatening women in childbirth.

She's said to rob men of their semen,

in order to conceive

her demonic children.

Nothing but horror stories from men,

trying to discredit her...

To some like a winged demon

of w*r and destruction,

to others,

the patron goddess of a world

from which the sacred has retreated.

Petrified fighter planes

exhibited at Berlin's

Neue Nationalgalerie

are among Kiefer's

most striking works.

Frighteningly relevant at the time

of the second Gulf w*r in 1990/91.

The history or the wars

that are happening nowadays,

are impossible

to understand by rational means.

Such absurd

and impossible things happen there,

no one can grasp them

with pure logic or reason.

The Nationalgalerie in Berlin,

has opened one of this season's

most stunning exhibitions with Kiefer.

On his latest trip to America,

Kiefer was distinguished as

most important

contemporary artist'.

The world Kiefer shows

isn't perfect

with its morbid landscapes

and environments.

A master of subtle irritation.

He produces large format myths.

You were accused of

your way of dealing with history,

now you are accused of

escaping into myth.

How do you feel

about this contradiction?

There's no such thing as

escaping into the myth'.

Because the myth is present.

Myths represent another way

of understanding history,

beyond the simply rational.

FOR PAUL CELAN:

SECRETS OF THE FERN

Everyone who falls has wings.

The Morgenthau Plan

Anselm, time's up!

Thank you, Auntie Jung.

With pencil and sketchbook,

but most of all with good ideas,

Anselm Kiefer from Rastatt

has received an important award:

the Jean Walter Prize.

It is the first time for

a German graduate to receive it.

Anselm Kiefer wanted to follow

the footsteps of Vincent van Gogh

Starting in the Dutch city of Arnheim.

Anselm Kiefer suggested

this study trip

to CIS, the school organisation.

Many send applications,

only a few are accepted.

Anselm Kiefer was among them.

He followed van Gogh's life

to Arles in the south of France.

Since 1962 Rastatt High School

is part of the organisation CIS

and could therefore present

it's first applicant, Anselm Kiefer,

who carried out this journey

in the summer of 1963,

and has now, for being

the best central European applicant,

received the Jean Walter Prize.

Anselm Kiefer returned with

over 300 drawings.

These show his painterly talent.

People search for lightness,

because they shy away from burdens,

the abyss.

Fundamentally,

they don't want to see it.

That's why this lightness exists.

If you take a look at the entire

history of the world,

the geological, cosmological history,

then what we are

is not even a drop in the rain.

We're less than a drop,

we are an atom.

Then you can obviously say:

"We are very light'.

The unbearable lightness of being...

Being is an absolute part of Nothing.

Or you could also say

that Nothing is part of Being.

They are tied together,

there is always a simultaneity,

no chronology.

That's reassuring, of course,

because if you plan something big,

then you know that failure

is already part of it.

A dead person am I,

who wanders

no longer registered

anywhere.

Unknown in the prefect's realm,

superfluous in the golden cities

and the verdant country,

dismissed long ago

and bequeathed nothing

but wind,

and time and sound.

1, who cannot live among people.

1, with the German language.

This cloud around me

which I keep as my house,

drift through all languages.

Oh, how it darkens,

those dark ones,

those rain sounds

only a few fall

In brighter zones

it then carries the dead up.

I don't feel like

I have arrived at all.

Actually, I sill feel

... banished.

Banished, and...

not really on the run,

but always on the way.

I can't stop it.

At the long tables of time

the tankards of God are carousing...

"At the long tables of time

the tankards of God are carousing...

They guzzle the eyes of the seeing

and the eyes of the blind,

the hearts of the ruling shadows,

the hollow cheek of evening.

They are the mightiest of boozers:

they raise to their lips the empty

as well as the full

and don't spill over like you

orl

Childhood is an empty space

like the beginning of the world.