Anselm Kiefer, “The Shape of Ancient Thought”

when you organize programs for a museum your bucket list looks a little bit different than most bucket lists and by the way there is no German term for a bucket list well we'll explain that later the movie was called alles gute amenda so mine does not include visiting exotic places or jumping off of things tonight however I get to cross one thing off my bucket list with Anselm Kiefer visiting the Getty Museum ever since I first studied in Germany in the 1980s on xone Kieffer's creations have tugged at me constantly reappearing in my thoughts challenging my thinking I still vividly recall the first encounter I had with Mona and gedachtnis in the hall of the Homburg a bahnhof the playfulness of the wilting fuselage of the fighter jet that he crafted the wings laden with LED books simultaneously inviting and refusing readership the windows filled with the shimmering blue grey poppy seeds and only much later that I discovered that the title referred to the haunting poem cycle Mona Deaconess by Paul Celan which frequently echoes and Kieffer's works many years after that first viewing layers of meaning continued to unfold for me born amidst the rubble and ruin of humanity's greatest travesty in the final weeks of World War two in Germany on film Kieffer offers us everything we might ask of an artist his creations engage intensely with the past his country's history and the burden all of us bear for what it wrought yet he inspires the optimism of rebirth and the potential to renegotiate the past he is relentlessly experimental in his use of materials and form in a world filled with far too much ho-hum art and we know that in the museum because we know how very few seconds most people spend looking at an artwork nobody says ho-hum took on some Kieffer's work it's impossible to ignore next time you're in a gallery with his art look around you and see how it affects people everyone reacts in one way or another and I was trying to put words together to bring all of this succinctly to sum up my feelings it's about Anselm Kiefer is work and the off the answer as it often does came from my small daughter who said to me the other day daddy do you want to art with me Papa this to meet Mia Clinton constant constant saga it was a way to get me away from the email but then I realized it's also a way to describe Anselm Kiefer he doesn't simply make things at koontz tipped he met he arts now it's customary at this point to read a list of honors awards and collections holding the works of the artist but we don't have an hour I'll mention just one in 2008 Kiefer was awarded the Peace Prize of the German book trade the most important award in Germany for peace and culture it has been awarded since 1950 by German publishers the first award going to Albert Schweitzer Keefer is as far as I know the only visual artist to ever receive the award and no doubt it was not by chance that he received it exactly 75 years after the book burning in Germany now normally we would put some flowers over there on the table before the conversation but you know if you put flowers next to enzyme kefir you don't know what's going to happen so instead and in recognition of his literary merit we decided to put some books there instead so please join me in a very warm welcome Timothy pots and Anselm Kiefer so are we live yes well welcome again I'm Tim Potts of course by process of deduction thank you all for being here just to clarify this is not a lecture in a traditional sense it is a conversation but to put your minds at ease most of the talking we'll be done by Handsome i'm the interlocutor so it's him we're here to hear from and I think we'll start if we may with the shape of ancient Ford and the book the small book that many all of you hopefully have in your hands that you received as you entered which is a recent project and one that connects with a lot of the themes and interests that you've been developing recently and so first I want to say that I asked to do a conversation another talk because until now when I did a conference and I did a talk I did it in German then it was translated in english or in french or wherever it was and then i had to read it and it's so it's so dry what does it try it's so rigid you know and I didn't do it anymore so I hope you understand that we do it now in a different way and so my English is not so good is the translator would have done it but which why and you have a little booklet and I brought it here because this was a book I did I think two years ago or three years ago it's a big pockets like this but I did a little small edition that you can take it with you and take it home and and look at it and it's it's I wanted to dedicate this to to Thomas macavity who is a variety American writer who died unfortunately very earlier and he I met him in I think in the earlier 90s and because he has to write a text about me in a cat and I met him and he was telling me about his project he's a big project he worked 30 or 40 years on it about the connection between Greek philosophy and means the police aquatic philosophy and examined an axiom in studies and so on with the Indian philosophy and I found this very interesting because normally you think always the West is the big the big intellectual we own and the West gives learns the other the Orion does Asia what war this culture and he proved in his book that that it was not one way first it was from the Greeks who brought the culture to India the philosophy and then it was the Indian support the culture to Creek so it was always the exchange so it and it's it's I think it's very modern thinking what he what he did because it speaks about bottles and and today borders for all in in Europe are very difficult I wish because tema complicated topic but and for me it was important I had a lot of conversation with customers about his studies because I felt that in this theme was a lot explained what an artist this artist doesn't create ex nihilo artist I feel it is in the stream he is he sits there but things goes through him and so as this intellectual movement from Greece to Indian from India to Greece so so that's what analysis is it's in the middle and is always to stolen John he's past burst burst by Azores years period but but I thought and by movements and so so for this reason I bought you this little book I never explain what I did but I did on this book so I when I left Germany I left Germany in 1991 and then I first I travel two years and there was was a lot of countries and one tribal wars was a silk road and in and later in India and there I saw a lot of brick factories and it was fascinating because they did this bricks out of our jiggle our chill is our claim clay out of clay tried it and then I put it together his boot layer of wood in the way of bricks a layer of wood and then I put the fire on and in one or two months the bricks was done then it took the bricks away and in the same way as a user pricks sir the give up lick the factory was was no more there too because the bricks was in the same times the factory and I did a lot of photographs is this brick factories I like them very much and then later I thought always thinking on this book of make everly how I can combine the creeks we can find the picture who combines agriculture and the Indian culture and so I made my assistant is very good in in Photoshop you know Photoshop you my name and Pilatus and I gave him at least temples and I said put it put it on top of the bricks and now you have a combination of of this very rudimentary application of bricks and this Greek architecture so I want to take you from a very specific project this one and then step right back to some of the things you said in other talks and in some of your writings about your whole your basic approach to art and the juxtaposition of art and life and just a couple of quotes to get you going you've seen I believe solely an art and then only poems are real and we'll get onto text a photo tree as another form of art and another place you said the real world does not exist for me unless it is through an artwork or a poem categorically distinct from life let's wait a bit about this that's true I thought you wouldn't have said it otherwise well I think you know and you can find it in in the book too of McKevitt II that the you can find it in the in the bay Indian Vaden and then the invaders in the Vedas and you can find it in the philosophy of empedocles or of of heraclea that the the real thing the objects are not stabile stable they move and that the reality is not reality so when I look at you you are for me an illusion and all what I see is illusion for me because I cannot I cannot trust on the of the conception and I what is not illusion is for me what is concentrated a poem for example or a piece of music or an artwork is no more its allusion to but illusion on another another level another level so and I I wouldn't couldn't live without poetry for example because poems are for me a concentration of reality it makes and makes it less in illusion if illusion illusion illusion now II so so putting it that way may seems then it's almost up this is almost coming out of their cart you can doubt everything that you seem to be seeing but what is most real other thoughts you have the meanings that art has intrinsically that they cannot be doubted yes but behave extinguish have burnt thoughts and the ball art so art is not only thoughts it's not only art is free a combination of three things it's feelings it's it's intellect and its will and if these three are together then then it becomes art and becomes and it becomes real so I would not say what the court said that the Tengiz opini I would say the feelings are as important as a thinking because a lot of decisions are not made about only by rational things they are made also about feelings and you can you can see this in politics in and in the in the Industrial Management that a lot of decisions are made this feeling the feelings are part of it so if art is the more real part of your life yeah you also talk often about how it's impossible to really define to try and pin it down to define what is art from what is non art and that there is this fluidity in in all things and you've compared it in one case to the notion of the the number pi which is can be different increasingly get close to defining it but you could never actually yes yeah you know I was a very bet in mathematics in school but I was fascinated by P I say hey you say PI because you're remember perhaps but what PI is you know to calculate the the content of the surface of the circle yeah you do tangent tangent from one side and thankings from the other side and you approach them more and more and you get three point something and I heard that there are multiple say they get suicide no it's not a joke they go to because they wanted to have the number precise you know and I don't know how much still in hindolam coma oh my Peniel special points yeah olive oil point and and I have a fascinated by the idea it's someone the mathematician gets suicide because he cannot get something you know and so but why you speak about but of course well because you you on the one hand art is the core of your life and the most thing that's most real yet it's still difficult to define you say often words you cannot describe art you cannot you in a way you destroy it when you put it to try to put art into words so it's at the center but it's also indefinable it's what you know it is a very concept if you like but it that doesn't diminish its importance for you yeah it's difficult to define art that that's very difficult it doesn't mean that I cannot tell immediately if I see a painting if it's out or not I can say this immediately but I cannot explain you why so so it's a it's it's not you cannot give it the definition as about other things about art it's not and also art is always it goes up you have hold in the hand and it goes away you know because there's also the ante art you know the future is or they want to destroy the art and destroying the art is art too so it's very difficult to get this fish you know in the hand you know okay you again I've spoken a lot about the conceptual basis of your work and I think you know that comes through in a way very clearly what I haven't seen you talk as much about is the aesthetic basis the decisions of I mean the materiality which is again to do with its layering and its materiality but how much do as what would be conventionally considered aesthetic considerations play in the structuring of the image yeah aesthetic in this context is a very difficult world that's cause artists don't want be aesthetic and artists take the most horrible things and put it up on the level of art so it cannot be it cannot be horrible enough to be unable to be put up you know so aesthetics is very difficult but there are some some visits a loss not lost when you do art but all of these loss you cannot you cannot put them on on the schedule schedule schedule okay and yet your work has recurrent qualities to it that over you know that your career the pallet for even at the basic level of the pallet the dark I mean the blacks the Grays the earth the earth colors that come from the soil the straw and so on there are these elements visually that are threads throughout what you do are they driven purely by the conceptual basis of it or is there it doesn't have another dimension you know I I do always a con before I start a painting or a sculpture I do a concept I have an idea what they want to do but then the concept gets get lost most of the times it doesn't work and then I get another concept so you need a concept to start with but but then I lose it and I have it always goes to another to another in another way I thought should be ended I work for this way I want to be surprised you know otherwise I wouldn't do all this pain and work so much you know and maybe it's a bit more about you start that's a bit about the process which is another aspect you've talked about how when you start a work and you're fully invested in it you're sort of in the painting and then there comes a phase when you need to stand back yeah and so it's it's it's a rhythm it's a certain treatment that I when I start painting sometimes I'm in the Carl I'm in the material and I I start them without unconsciously perhaps sometimes unconsciously and then after a certain time I have I have a result mostly very bad one but I have a result and I can put it in front of me and there then a conversation starts so I have to to to discuss with the painting what it means because it comes out something some color some object and I don't know immediately what it means to me what it says to me so what I did is something out of me it's like another person and then after this conversation I continue to do something when it's more clear and then this is repeated sometimes one time sometimes three times sometimes about over years it depends and sometimes you decide you need an intervention with nature you bad area you might paint it black you might know I need hang on with that I need help often this in nature can help you and I put the painting out into snow or in the rain or for for one month or even one year and sometimes recently in since two years I put them in in electrolyzers you know electrolyzers is when when you have two methyls and you put high unpair not voltage on pair and amperage amperage on it then the metal get yoni sized and one metal warned us to the other one and I put the painting between and so the painting changed drastically because it's it's not made for the electrolysis and I had to show for I think two years ago with Jay Joplin in London and the paintings changed during the show so they changed color and this is a nightmare for museum people oh yes generally it's not a good thing sangala but but what I learned but my conversation with Thomas mcevil is that you know even the creeks and ends and the Indians any case they they didn't think that things are stable they didn't think that they thought that all changed all the time and it changed and it has a and encase and Highsmith a circle like the circular rhythm and because I don't think that you know we thought that the development I was in Disney once you know in Miami what is this called it's yeah no no but Escott no is Epcot but it's called Epcot and and there were there was they showed how wonderful we developed the technique and and how VB are able now to do bigger pyramids and although it was very positive and positive thinking and and then I thought there's something wrong you know and because we have in the West them in the West we have we had the idea and still they have perhaps that it goes up like a line so the technique it's better that all gets better and what we have in the in the in the Christian charges eschatology that at the end is a paradise and the NASA eschatology was a communism they saw also that it goes up a line like this and then we have the Paradise and I think that's not at all true we see this control you are you're German and therefore almost by definition you have a connection with the Romantic tradition in German art and some of your earliest work the occupation photographs and so on your there's a clear sort of connection to Friedrich and the the lone figure on the promontory order in the landscape how important is that tradition to you in your work so the the connection to gospel have sweetly when I did these actions it was accidentally I've also I've also I think I was I was growing up with Kasparov lately so I couldn't stand not Elson like a cuspid of it sweetly but it was not consciously but the romantic side no in the 19th century the Germans was very influential in the world with romantic ideas for for example Madame de Stael in France you she wrote about the Germans and but we should not confuse romantic with some cozy things you know you can say a cosy yeah the romantic is a philosophical system so it it's started with fish to perhaps with a fellow pillows philosopher fish who discovered himself as a as a source of again knees of knowledge not of knowledge and so and that this was then a very strong movement and head and Butthead also some very bad advice on options ranges branches for example the the in the beginning of the twenty centuries you know William to the German Kaiser he had he had the idea to do a big fleet and it never played a role in the war the fleet Saddam V but he was everyone romantic you know like little little little boys who have ships and so now it was like this and and he had a big big fleet he provoked the English people --is-- government so this was a one kind also of the or matisse move was quite negative and and I think also when when we look at it it's a terrorism for example for observer I F and for in Germany - Germany this wasn't an over over doses of self self-importance or you can say yes yeah because you want to do something yourself you don't want to depend from other from other things from laws and this is all so romantic and I pop one of the reasons I ask is because let the the importance landscape has in your work which in the Roma definition there's a spirit in landscape and it's also etched into the landscape is the record of history and time and events and people's and some of that seems to flow through into your work yes I think when I look no no I'm I'm full with history because I know a lot about history and when I see a landscape I cannot I cannot see that's innocent or that's without remnants or traces of of wars of horrible things so the landscape is for me not poor landscape never even when I did you know that the last it was year two years ago when I did the morgenthau plan' paintings this was really colorful paintings so these are I did a once in Paris in body in in the gallery of lyrical goes in and you know the Mokpo you know what Morgenthau was no I don't think that it was an American minister who wanted to in the end of in 44 he decided to to transform Germany after the victory in poor agricultural land without trains without cars and things and this and whose Abell didn't want this because he thought it is impossible we need Germany then they have to to to nourish a noun now as Germany if they don't can do something that loves so he didn't want this and but by indiscretion it came to Germany and then it helped a lot of lot Hitler and Goebbels for the propaganda they said if you don't fight the Americans will turn you into farmers all of you so the for this with me not I know it because it was a big help for Hitler you know for Goebbels and why I speak now about the Monto plan well the landscape III of the history and laughter and then yeah two years ago I had a head I painted a lot of colorful flowers you know and I got a bad conscience because it looked it look bad a family affirmative all these flowers because I can be a person his painter you know if I want so I had all these wonderful paintings what the Gallo is like very much and and that's all what I do now with his paintings and and then and then I I wanted to put some acid on them and I said I called the morgenthau plan' because then you could see how beautiful German would be with all these flowers if the morgenthau plan' would be executed I say okay you're a different type of escape altogether the built structures in bada and that's the nice pose the most Monument monumental is there is that something completely different that's going on building structures underground the tunnels the there were an artificial world a conceptual world below ground no is the you know I don't distinguish between painting I do a lot of books you know to and and I built things I think it's all in the fluxes so so the landscape in Park I changed completely I did roads in I did legs and there are 54 buildings not for real estate is as art works you know and it's all one process from for me you know for me a painting is not finished - it's not finished so in India Jacques all these authors environments are not are not finished either but it had but the beginning was another reason you know when I was going to France I lived in the South of France for 20 years 25 years a very beautiful country but for me it wasn't beautiful it became it became a very made a big mistake you know to go to France and so then I did these tunnels to go underneath this since Netscape and this was the beginning of of of this work in the in the landscape and it's always different the beginning from the end it's always been given different from what you want to do and what you get then I think in life's do you know when you have an idea what you dream what you won't want to get and when you get it it's not what you try and know very often like this you've talked a lot about poetry and its importance to you and of course words one of the most sort of conspicuous things about your body of work is the role that words play in the integrated into the imagery and perhaps you could explain a bit more about the role they play are they as it were icons but verbal icons within the painting or are they gesturing to something beyond the image the actual visual image are they another dimension to the work how do you what is the role they play I think the words they did is it since good this building demand is go fairly this is in agra files they make him a collector dangerous no that's its knees and Agatha's desert something of ours get the bottles it's the spilled another foul they create a danger yeah the words created danger for the for the paintings because it contradicts sometimes it's you ask yourself what would it means now this world there so you you you are activated to think about and perhaps you are against the idea that there is some written and and but it's also a very it's a pure graphical thing too because when I was said I always wrote a lot I still write a lot and when I was 17 years old I got a prize for my writing and this when you are young you think the prize is something good and you should go in this direction so I was always in this ambivalent situation that I didn't know if I want to be a writer or a painter now I know because you cannot do both and so for the for this reason it's it you have the words and the painting - okay can I bring you back to something you talked a bit before about the usual boundaries borders and your interest in the in-between spaces in the transitions of things go through yeah and when we were talking we mentioned Monet in his and the haystacks and we have how to have one of those in our collection so maybe Peter you can put it up and you said it you don't think money was interested in capturing the way the haystacks looked at that particular moment in time with the light the way it was the time of day and then another time of day and different kind of night you think he was actually interested in what makes this painting different from the previous one or the next one if you won't see more than one painting if you see five it's a row then you go from one painting to the other and look for the difference and so and and you are more between the paintings and into painting and that's what I what what is important for me I'm always between two paintings I do this and then I think already on the next one and I'm not really in one thing I'm always in the in the transition and when I saw this Monet paintings it makes it easy to think like this because they also sail but there are different day times yeah so I'm from Dallas and then I like the idea to imagine you don't look at the painting you look orbison between the paintings and this idea like very much and I'm always always between well I was going to say asked that exactly that because with the Monet's you almost have to imagine the transition from one to the other but it seems in your painting you're trying to capture the actual transition it's you're not wanting the stability of something that is what it is you're wanting something that is gesturing between two theories because in the one works best abilities is a big illusion another illusion then the general illusion but is another is also an illusion stability or you know already the Greeks have a kid he said Alice fleas Panther hi he was already aware of the non stability of the things yeah we're going to I will come to have some questions from the audience in a little bit but I just have a couple of other things how we do yeah couple of other things before we go I don't need to go up watch we can continue us what and this actually relates to what we were just talking about you make the point that the idea of progress and evolution in art is something of a misconception or if there is the evolution it goes in random and often circular ways you could climb to a beginning you started from and there is no such thing as it as an advance there are just differences in a way can you talk about that yeah you bring the idea of what is abstraction and what is the minimal art and all this you know when I was started to to paint in in the 70s I painted figurative things things you could see and I was they saw time of a reaction there you know because I'm not abstract not minimalist and I must say that's part of the idea that it has a eschaton eschatology that it goes up like this but you know look at it I like very much minimal art that we don't misunderstand us it was an important moment in the art after the Equality party to have something clear but what to do after the minimal art what you do when you when you when you have done all the stripes and then about what you do then so so it's it life goes on and history goes on and I think in the art there is not this this line up that the art cuts always better more more more precise or more radical I think in in the art history there is not evolution and I was I've also prized in near my home in South of France they discovered the growth got a cave a cave is a show bear ok freely and I had the chance to visit it because it was my sixth 60s anniversary and the prefect gave me a present that I could visit this this cave normally you cannot visit it anymore because I did now adapt application a copy aside and I could see it is this cave is I found out it's 30,000 years old and it's older than Lascaux let's go is 20 years you know that's : in France it's 20 thousand years old but the court or the cave of Chauvet is it's more advanced in a way the animals are already little bit perspective so I like this this discovery because I knew all always said there's no evolution in art you know can our two can go back you know the Domus own little Marcel d'Avignon it was going back to the net to the to the to the how to say that you cannot say to the plague are to the tribal arts dry blood okay yeah to be going and and and this was going back to something so that for me important and I wasn't I wasn't Donald unsettled to be to have a figurative art but anyway when you go where close to my paintings in our abstract immediately so I deliver you're both last question and then we will go to the audience particularly your interesting transitions and of course alchemy is one of the you know as a well one of the greatest historical manifestations of interests in that and the the particular materials that seem to have deep meanings for you you know the led the straw some things like this where is where do these conceptions come from is that you're with ladies at your sort of personal reaction to the net Lieberman the mutability of the material or is it's all deeper I use a material Amman I'm I'm I'm shocked by it or fascinated for example I discovered led by accident in my head a very old house in Germany and the the sewage so Richard yes sir it was out of lead and it was was kaput there's to be repaired and I was so fascinated by this material led that I from then on I continued to to to do a lot with LED and but this is because I was fascinated because I was fascinated because there was something in the material I think the materials have already some spirit in it's not like Plato who said there are the ideas and then the ideas produce the object with objects yeah I think the spirit is already in the in the material if you can discover it I don't discover all the materials I have led to straw and things like that so and it's inside and the artist brings it out and what interest you now what are the ideas or directions you're pursuing at the moment I'm you know before I came here I was in Vienna and I had I had the talk with the quantum physic physicist and this was so fascinating I done so much because he put me in his laboratory on and he showed me that he came from one place he can do a certain combination of photons he's alleged photon you know the lightest for compose phone he can do a certain constellation photons and this can be transported thousands of kilometers without any and his they are not connection and and this is a new he did he is a develop developed this and it's against all physicists law and and and I was fascinated by the I cannot explain it you you really good because it's not I'm not able to do it really but I what I conceived this goes on and also I was very impressed once I was I could go you know the sound sound turn turning incredible and there I could go down because the you know that they they make a collision of the soup adamah particles you know subatomic it's a nuclear accelerator yeah yeah nucleus accelerator and they had a problem they had over paired and I could could go down normally you cannot go down and to see it and this was really fascinating and also how there are thousands of scientists on the world who depend on this collisions than this delicious garage collisions and so these are things are fascinated okay and this will make its way into your work somehow and certainly perhaps is already in we don't see it but it okay alright maybe we could then have a bit more light and then ask for questions while we're waiting maybe look away talk for a minute about trees you you put a palm tree like a fine yeah in a church in Los Angeles oh yeah it was Pam's on Doug you know I'm I'm raised Catholic in a poor sense and I was out oh boy and I still can do the math the mess the Messer man Layton I am still in my head I forgot a lot but this is still there and and I did pounce on that because I was always fascinated by the day Pym's on that because this was the transition moment where Jesus Christ was at the same time a king and already a criminal to court because he was going in yours LM on the onso not on Zohar thunder on Tatanka and they put palm fronds on on the way and so so there you see the palm tree without official one because the museums don't like the real trees because they have little animals in and they go to the other paintings so it's a audition tomorrow and and there are some samples under betweens who who commentate this pan Sunday but I'm quite interested in your physicality of you have several Studios which they are huge so I just wonder how you manage in your in your subconscious or conscious to control like you have 200 acres studio you have a huge one outside Paris which used to be a department store and you collect it so much materiality with for your work and like tons and tons of stuff so the scale is like almost almost not very humans who speak so how do you control all that in your head you know like I don't manage yes you know there's an artist I like very much it's all done and he said in for to joke about yay can you translate it you have all you have to work all day always the work yeah if you choose Oliver you a lot of your work has to do with war and the remnants of war are you trying to tell us the German people the whole world never forget tragedy because we can always fall stupidly into tragedy again in England in England there's a Imperial War Museum and it's a very good museum but they have one one idea they say after Hitler is when he will be Bezique the overcome defeated then the world will be okay but we see now the world it's not okay it continues in a way and but what what was the question maybe decree was in Turkey constant no no I show how the things are and and we can hope that to show things are they are that will change that they will change perhaps first of all thank you for an outstanding discussion it's very insightful and fascinating for all of us and I wanted to comment on your last comment as a as a classicist is somebody really inspired by an interested in history I think many of us are used to looking towards history and idealized we are looking towards classicism as some sort of lost Eden where as you seem to work with it in a much more realistic much more in a way that's continuing going forward so when you you say that you want to you want to change will make the world a better place but never forget the past where do you see us going that's a better place um you speak about classicism but I go to the glass season but but I go much further I go to the dinosaurs you know because we have in our in our cells we have some memory of the dinosaurs even you know that the jealousy is one example excel jealous jealousy is sitting here a little part of our brain we have still from the dinosaurs it's completely devastating and nonsense you know but we have it you know and but the best most different no but my sister Fei 10z Tigan volleyballs Olympian Vaseline depth under liquor she passes on that Co now I think the past is something we create all the time because the present we cannot have you know we be when they speak about now it's already gone so what we can speak about is the past and our are remembering our souvenirs own memories is a creation act because then we create something what is there but we are not there because the present we cannot get up here I did too good at the future is you know I speak always about this movement I think when I go in the past like this I go in the same times in the future it's it's connected you know these two movements are connected and when this movement is fast out like this then I'm dying and then not really up there yeah I'm wondering about the appearance of Kabbalah and mysticism in your work and if there's maybe a story of how you discovered that in hokay you came to incorporate it Kabbalah um so when I was in in the 80s I they asked me the Jerusalem Museum in another Israel Museum in Jerusalem asked me to do a show and from and then I was going to jostle em and from there on about several times in in Israel in Jerusalem and I was I knew the writings of cash on column and he he was writing about the Kabbalah about Jewish mysticism and from the eighties on the mid eighties on a lot of my of my material my thinking was in this tradition I wondered why you left Germany and you reside in France do you continue to reside in France or might you ever return to your land where you were born I always followed Women's in my life it was a mistake but but you're on a way they are you know I learned when you do a painting you do a lot of mistakes but they lead somewhere you know so the timing had nothing to do with German unification no no no no it was poor personal things my my wife then it was my second wife she hated Germany so I had to leave let me let me ask a question what's your what's your feeling about the state of the kind of contemporary art at the moment and where it's heading and I think it's a big work today too to see the art because you have to do some said discrimination you can see us just as you have two distinct you have still the same amount of art but you cannot multiple you can multiply the museum's but you can multiply the artist it doesn't work you know and today you know in before there was the artists we know and there was a lot of artists who work for the saloons you know work each each big town heads I don't know how much thousand artists because I need it for the sofas you know that was and today this is mixed up it's not a big problem but you have to be more diligent or more modular changing you have to you have to work harder before you knew and if someone is known it could be good you know today if someone is known you have to look that's good know a couple of times at least that I so your airports in a museum close to Joseph boys so for example in an over ban of and here at the bro in Los Angeles so my question is how do you feel to usually be close to him in a in a room in a museum do you see any connection about your artistic journeys or older so no but when I stopped was knowing boys I had already finished my studies I was I had already my exam my deployment and I was going to to Dusseldorf to meet metamer but I was never in his class you know I met him from time to time shot in my work and and I when I did this action when I when I conquered the rope in countries I had it was very controversial in in the in the art school in culture and when I showed it to boys he just looked at it and said it's a good action you know it what he looked at profession in a professional way not in in the more holistic way if it's if it's perhaps misunderstand deeper or so and and I I think that voice is I would say for me the most important artist after the war but if I thought again yeah I was entertained it was the same in London I was in one room of his boys and for me to honor very intrigued by what you said about jealousy coming from the occipital region of the brain you spoke about the scientist and the sub of subatomic particles I mean myself I'm a scientist my boyfriend here is the artist and our conversations are very interesting to say the least but I'd like to know from you you know if you have feelings on it the power of art with science and I feel like you are signs visa pal Commission job as well yeah how do you feel like they could build each other up or if you do feel like they could use you you have yourself no no what do you think I saw yeah yeah yeah sure no it's not a question of help it's a question of what is there you know an artist is in the life he is there so so he is in the politics is in the in the in the research in the scientist science so because the artist doesn't create ex nihilo it doesn't exist he takes all in or things close to him throw him through and it's not help it's it's just it's down and you use it this is part of the Jewish mysticism do we connect this to the crystal nacht as well in the broken glass you can it is not made for the coast and left because it would be too obvious you know but but it's it's this is a Shaheena in over the Sheena Shaheena as a safer HOTAS also leaves palm and it's been a folk mahabhava has a thought Nets off and and kata is the the most elevated and my market is the earth and then between you have to poet and you have yes oh okay I think we should draw things to close thank you very much you

Channel: Getty Museum

Views: 52,844

Rating: 4.9180326 out of 5

Keywords: getty museum, getty, Anselm Kiefer, Timothy Potts, Morgenthau Plan, Caspar David Friedrich, Claude Monet, Thomas McEvilley, getty center, pulic programs, getty360

Id: 3lwuFq5_6c0

Length: 60min 41sec (3641 seconds)

Published: Mon May 02 2016