06.25.06
Anselm Kiefer at the Hirshhorn
Anselm Kiefer makes artwork that shakes me to the core. Standing in front of just one work puts me in a state of awe for more than a few minuets. Going to see the Anselm Kiefer show at the Hirshhorn today was almost unbearable. I have been reading books and taking classes on how to make art, how to depict what I am looking at. Seeing his works changes my perspective on everything. I don’t think I have the courage to go home and throw molten lead over my canvases, but maybe that’s why my works lack the raw emotion and power that his seem to emit naturally. A giant painting by Kiefer my have caked on – something – could be paint or clay, along with shellac and emulsion, which I know are there for multilayered reasons, he may have rusted metal, splashed lead, torched out sections or some of the biggest sunflowers I have ever seen, root and all, attached down the middle.
I don’t know how he gets his paintings made. It seems like they are total chaos and haphazardly composed but when I stand in front of one, I wouldn’t dream of changing a thing. I don’t know how he can control or allow materials to be themselves, and be perfect in what they do. It has been my experience that a paint need worked on the canvas, and his constructions seem effortless, but full of meaning and feeling. There is deep thought – but also palpable feeling, and to get to that level of emotion in art is not a universal talent.
I haven’t fully digested Kiefer. I have read the critics, I know he studies religions and illustrates various stories and combines levels of meaning. But just because I understand want they write doesn’t mean I understand everything about one of his paintings. There is the whole brush stoke phenomenon through layers so think I can measure them with a ruler – sometimes I saw finger holes, I would say prints but the alarms beeped to annoyingly for me to get that close. But sometimes I saw finger holes like holes in a bowling ball, only these were in the painted surfaces. The emotion of his paint strokes and compositions read more fully to me than the placards on the sides of the paintings. There is the lead splashes, the books made from old burnt paintings that deal with healing, and cauterizing. My goodness what an awesome statement that is full of pain, doubt, self-renewal, and self assurance after the lesson have been learned.
They can’t be archival. They have to deteriorate before to long. Paintings that thick have to deal with gravity somewhere. But the guts it takes to make those images – the courage to make those marks and decisions is heroic. To let the learning take over and let itself manifest through the intestines of intuition. I learn about myself and the world every time I see some of his work. I feel myself evolving when I see a lead sky, or a giant wood grain charcoal drawing on fire. I can’t digest these works because sometimes I am sure he uses bile in place of oil and it makes me sick to think of the ash and fat and rust and decay that fill entire wall, which become worlds in and of themselves. They can’t be archival because they will end up eating themselves. And if I try and digest them they may eat me as well.
I have to go see this show again – I went through twice today. I will go back. But its tough for me to decide if I want to keep my guard up so I don’t get consumed from the inside, or if I let everything in and try to deal with the pain, the doubt, the hopeful self renewal to gain some type of self assurance I can only get after the lessons are learned.
