Anselm Kiefer - The Terror of History, The Temptation of Myth: Huyssen

Anselm Kiefer: The Terror of History, the Temptation of Myth
Author(s): Andreas Huyssen

Source: October, Vol. 48 (Spring, 1989), pp. 25-45
Published by: The MIT Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/778947 .
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Anselm Kiefer: The Terror of

History,the Temptation of Myth
ANDREAS
HUYSSEN
More than any other recent painter's work, Anselm Kiefer's painterly
projecthas called forthruminationsabout nationalidentity.Ameripostpainterly
can criticsin particularhave gone to greatlengthin praisinghis Germanness,the
authenticwaysin whichhe deals in his paintingwiththe ghostsof the fatherland,
especiallywiththe terrorof recent German history.The use of profoundallegory,the multiplereferencesto Germanicmyth,the play withthe archetypalall of thisis held to be typicallyGerman, and yet,by the power of art, it is said
somehow to transcendits originsand give expression to the spiritualplightof
humanityin the late twentiethcentury.'The temptationis great to dismisssuch
appreciationsof nationalessence as a marketingstrategyof the
stereotype-driven
in national identityis in. Even the Germans benefitfromit
Pride
Reagan age.
since Ronald Reagan's visitto the Bitburgcemeterygave its blessingto Helmut
Kohl's politicalagenda of forgettingthe fascistpast and renewingnationalpride
in the name of "normalization." In an internationalart market in which the
boundariesbetween nationalculturesbecome increasinglyirrelevant,the appeal
of the national functionslike a sign of recognition,a trademark.What has been
characteristicof the movie industryfora long time(witnessthe successionsof the
French cinema, the Italian cinema, the new German cinema, the Australian
cinema, etc.) now seems to be catchingup with the art world as well: the new
German painting.Let me quote, perhaps unfairly,a briefpassage froma 1983
article that addresses the Germannessin question:
Kiefer's use of paint is like the use of fireto cremate the bodies of
dead, however dubious, heroes, in the expectationof theirphoenixlike resurrectionin anotherform.The new German paintersperform
an extraordinaryserviceforthe German people. They lay to restthe
ghosts- profoundas only the monstrouscan be -of German style,
See the foreword to the catalogue for Anselm Kiefer's American retrospective.Mark
1.
Rosenthal,AnselmKiefer,Chicago and Philadelphia, Art Instituteof Chicago and the Philadelphia
Museum of Art, 1987.

OCTOBER
26
culture, and history, so that the people can be authentically

new. . . . They can be freedof a past identityby artisticallyreliving
it.2
Rememberingthat it was in fact the Nazis who promised authentic national
renewal,resurrectionof the German Volkfromthe ashes of defeat,remembering
also thatit was the Nazis who practicedmass cremationnot forresurrection,but
fortotaleliminationof theirvictims,memoryand all, thiskindof rhetoricsimply
makes my hair stand on end. To me, a German of Kiefer's generation, the
referenceto laying to rest the ghosts of the past reads like a Bitburg of art
the
criticism,ifnot worse,and I would claim thatit fundamentally
misrepresents
its
in
Kiefer's
work.
Kiefer's
forms,
painting-in
problematicof nationalidentity
its materials,and its subject matter-is emphaticallyabout memory,not about
and if flightis one of its organizingpictorialmetaphors,it is not the
forgetting,
of
the
flight
phoenix, but the doomed flightof Icarus and the melancholyflight
of the mutilatedand murderouslyvengefulWayland, the master smithof the
classicbook of Norse myth,the Edda. Kiefer'swings,afterall, are made of lead.
The purpose of this essay, then, will be to free our understandingof
Kiefer'scomplex and captivatingworkfromthe stereotypesof Germannessand
fromthe cliche that names him Anselm Angst and worshipshis flightinto the
transcendenceof art and the universallyhuman. I propose to place Kiefer's
aesthetic project in its specificcultural and political context, the context of
German culture after Auschwitz out of which it grew and to which it gives
aestheticform,whichenergized it duringlong yearsof littlerecognition,and to
which,I would argue against facile claims of transcendenceand universality,it
ultimatelyremainsbound -in its strengths,in its weaknesses,and mostof all in
its ambiguities.
Even a firstand casual look at Kiefer'sworkwilltell us thatit is obsessively
concernedwithimagesof mythand of history.Immersedin the exploration(and
exploitation) of the power of mythicimages, this work has given rise to the
thatsomehow mythtranscendshistory,thatit can redeem us from
mystification
history,and that art, especiallypainting,is the high road toward redemption.
Indeed, Kieferhimself- to the extentthatwe hear his voice throughthe paraphrases of art criticism(including Mark Rosenthal's problematic attemptsat
ventriloquismin the catalogue of the recent American exhibitionof Kiefer's
work)-is not innocentin provokingsuch responses.But ultimatelyhis work is
also informedby a gestureof self-questioning,
by an awareness of the questionthat belies
able nature of his undertaking,and by a pictorialself-consciousness
I take his work-and thiswillbe one of mybasic arguments
such mystifications.
Donald B. Kuspit,"Flak fromthe 'Radicals': The AmericanCase AgainstGerman Painting,"
2.
New York, New Museum of
in Brian Wallis, ed., Art AfterModernism:Rethinking
Representation,
ContemporaryArt, 1984, p. 141.

AnselmKiefer:The TerrorofHistory,theTemptation
ofMyth
27
-to be about the ultimate inseparabilityof mythand history.Rather than

merely illustratingmythor history,Kiefer's work can be read as a sustained
reflectionon how mythicimages functionin history,how mythcan never escape
history,and how historyin turn has to rely on mythicimages. While much of
Kiefer'smythicpaintingseems energizedby a longingto transcendthe terrorsof
recentGerman history,the point,drivenhome relentlesslyby subject matterand
aestheticexecution, is that this longingwill not, cannot be fulfilled.
One way to discuss context (Kiefer's and our own) is to relate Kiefer to
three West German cultural phenomena that have captured the attentionof
Americanaudiences in recentyears. Firstthere was the internationalsuccess of
the new German cinema with the work of Fassbinder, Herzog, Wenders,
Schloendorff,Kluge, Sanders-Brahms,von Trotta, Ottingerand many others.
Much of that work was driven by questions of German identity
-personal,
political,cultural,sexual. All of thiswork was ultimatelyrooted in the acknowledgmentthatthe fascistpast and the postwardemocraticpresentare inescapably
chained together(examples are Fassbinder'sfilmsabout the 1950s, Kluge's films
from Yesterday
Girl to The Patriot,and the various filmson German terrorism
and its relationshipto the Nazi past). There are especially strikingparallels
betweenKiefer'streatmentof fascistimageryand Syberberg'smajor films,and it
is no accident that both artistshave been accused of sympathizingwithfascism.
Then there was the rise to instantstardomof a group of painters,manyof
them fromBerlin,who had been paintingforalmost twentyyears-during the
heydayof late abstraction,minimalism,conceptualism,and performanceartbut who were recognized and marketedas a group only in the early 1980s: die
neuenWilden,the neoexpressionists,
as theywere mostcommonlycalled because
of theirreturnto the pictorialstrategiesof that pivotal movementof German
modernism.Just as German expressionismhad given rise to one of the most
debates about the aestheticsand politicsof modernismin the 1930s,3
far-ranging
neoexpressionismimmediatelysparkeda debate about the legitimacyof a return
to figurationafterabstraction,minimalism,and concept art.4
in GerThirdly and most recently,there was the so-called Historikerstreit
many,the historians'debate over the German responsibilityfor the holocaust,
the alleged need to "historicize"the fascistpast, and the problem of a German
national identity.Indeed, as philosopherJtirgenHabermas observed,the historians' debate about the German past was in truth a debate about the selfunderstandingof the Federal Republic today. In thatdebate of 1986, a number
of right-wing
historianstook it upon themselvesto "normalize" German history,
3.
Documented in ErnstBloch, et al., Aesthetics
and Politics:Debatesbetween
Bloch,Lukdcs,Brecht,
Benjamin,and Adorno,London, Verso, 1980.
4.
See especially Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, "Figures of Authority,Ciphers of Regression," in
Brian Wallis, ed., ArtAfterModernism:Rethinking
New York, New Museum of ConRepresentation,
temporaryArt, 1984, pp. 107-136.

OCTOBER
28
and one of them went so far as to put the blame for the holocaust, by some
perverted logic of the priorityof the Soviet Gulag, on the Bolsheviks.5The
Historikerstreit,
outrageous as it was in this latteraspect, did make the pages of
the New YorkTimes.What did not become clear fromthe reporting,however,is
the factthat underlyingthe whole debate was the conservativeturn in German
politics since the early 1980s, the Bitburg syndrome,the public debate about
proposals to erect national monumentsand national historymuseums in Bonn
and in Berlin. All of this happened in a culturaland political climate in which
issues of national identityhad resurfacedfor the firsttime since the war. The
various factionsof German conservatismare in search of a "usable past." Their
aim is to "normalize" German historyand to freeGerman nationalismfromthe
shadowsof fascism-a kind of launderingof the German past forthe benefitof
the conservativeideological agenda.
All three phenomena-the new German cinema, neoexpressionistpainting, and the historian'sdebate - show in differentways how West German
culture remains haunted by the past. It is haunted by images which in turn
produce haunting images-in cinema as well as in painting. Anselm Kiefer,
despite his seclusionin a remotevillageof the Odenwald, is verymuch a part of
that culture.
WithinWest Germany,criticshave been much more skepticalof the idea

thatKiefersucceeds in dealing withand exorcisingthe ghostsof the Germanpast
in hispainting.Criticismfirstemergedpubliclyon a broad scale when Kieferand
Baselitz representedthe Federal Republic at the 1980 Venice Biennale, and
Kieferwas accused in the feuilletonsof flauntinghis Germannesswithhis embarrassinglynationalistmotifs.Some American commentatorshave dismissedsuch
criticismsas bizarre,crudelycensorious,and cognitivelyinferior.6I believe that
thisis a serious mistakeborn of an ignoranceof Kiefer'scontextthatultimately
disables the reading of the paintingsthemselves.The nationalism/fascism
problematicin Kiefer'sworkdeservesseriousattention,and Kieferhimselfwould be
the firstto insiston that. The American desire finallyto have another major
contemporarypainter,after Picasso and Jackson Pollock, may indeed be overwhelming,but we don't give Kieferthe recognitionhe deservesby avoiding the
problematicallyGerman aspects of his work and by making him into an "art
pathfinderforthe 21st century,"as one recent headline had it.7 Certainly,I do
not wantto see Kieferidentifiedwitha by now internationalpostmoderntriumphalism which has at least some of the criticsin ecstaticrapture. Consider the
For comprehensiveanalysisand documentationsee the special issue on the Historikerstreit
5.
in
New GermanCritique,no. 44 (Spring/Summer1988).
For example, Peter Schjeldahl, "Our Kiefer,"Artin America,no. 3 (March 1988), p. 124.
6.
7.
ChristianScienceMonitor,March 21, 1988, p. 23.

ofMyth
29
followingpreposterousstatementby Rudi Fuchs, Dutch art historianand museum director and organizer of the 1982 postmodernart bonanza at Kassel,
Documenta 7: "Paintingis salvation.It presentsfreedomof thoughtof whichit is
the triumphantexpression. . . . The painter is a guardian-angelcarryingthe
palettein blessingover the world. Maybe the painteris the darlingof the gods."8
This is art theology,not art criticism.Kiefer has to be defended against such
appropriations.He is not in the business of salvation
regressiveand mystifying
in guardian angels that has become
nor
in
cultural
the
trafficking
triumphant
in
the
1980s-witness
the recent Wenders/Handke film
increasinglypopular
is
Kiefer
into
Desire.
Neither
simply
resurrectingthe German past, as
Wingsof
some of his German criticscomplain. But, in a countrylike West Germany,
where definitionsof national and culturalidentityall too oftenhave led to the
temptationof relegitimizingthe Third Reich, any attemptby an artistto deal
withthe major icons of fascismwill understandablycause public worries.Fortunatelyso.
What is it,then,thathas Kiefer'scountrymenup in arms?Withwhatseems
to be an incrediblenaivete and insouciance, Kiefer is drawn time and again to
those icons, motifs,themesof the German culturaland politicaltraditionwhich,
a generationearlier,had energized the fascistculturalsynthesisthat resultedin
the worstdisasterof German history.Kiefer provocativelyreenacts the Hitler
salute in one of his earliestphoto works;he turnsto the mythof the Nibelungen,
whichin itsmedievaland Wagnerianversionshas alwaysfunctionedas a cultural
prop of German militarism;he revivesthe tree and forestmythologyso dear to
the heart of German nationalism;he indulges in reverentialgestures toward
Hitler's ultimateculture hero, Richard Wagner; and he suggestsa pantheon of
German luminariesin philosophy,art, literature,and the military,including
Fichte,Klopstock,Clausewitz,and Heidegger, mostof whom have been tainted
withthe sins of German nationalismand certainlyput to good use by the Nazi
propaganda machine; he reenacts the Nazi book burnings; he paints Albert
Speer's megalomaniacarchitecturalstructuresas ruinsand allegories of power;
he conjures up historicalspaces loaded with the historyof German-Prussian
nationalismand fascistchauvinismsuch as Nuremberg,the MairkischeHeide, or
the Teuteburg forest,and he createsallegoriesof some of Hitler'smajor military
ventures. Of course, one has to point out here that some of these icons are
treated with subtle irony and multi-layeredambiguity,occasionally even with
satiricalbite (e.g., OperationSeelion),but clearlythereare as manyothersthatare
not. At any rate, the issue is not whetherKiefer intentionallyidentifieswithor
glorifiesthe fascisticonographyhe chooses for his paintings.I thinkit is clear
that he does not. But that does not let him offthe hook. The problem is in the
very usage of those icons, in the fact that Kiefer's images violate a taboo,
transgressa boundarythathad been carefullyguarded, and not forbad reasons,
8.
R. H. Fuchs, AnselmKiefer,Venice, Edizioni La Biennale di Venezia, 1980, p. 62.

OCTOBER
30
by the postwarculturalconsensusin West Germany:abstentionfromthe imageworld of fascism,condemnation of any cultural iconography even remotely
reminiscentof thosebarbaricyears.This self-imposedabstention,afterall, was at
the heart of Germany'spostwarreemergenceas a relativelystable democratic
culture in a Westernmode.
Why,then,does Kieferinsiston workingwithsuch a controversialbody of
icons? At stake in Kiefer's paintingsis not just the opening of wounds, as one
oftenhears,as iftheyhad ever been healed. Nor is it the confrontationbetween
the artist,whose paintingconjuresup uncomfortabletruths,and his countrymen,
who wantto forgetthe fascistpast. The BitburgGermanswillforgetit. They are
determinedto forget- Kiefer or no Kiefer. They want to normalize; Kiefer
does not. The issue,in otherwords,is not whetherto forgetor to remember,but
ratherhow to rememberand how to handle representationsof the remembered
past at a timewhen mostof us, over fortyyearsafterthe war,onlyknowthatpast
throughimages,films,photographs,representations.It is in the workingthrough
of this problem, aestheticallyand politically,that I see Kiefer's strength,a
strengththatsimultaneouslyand unavoidablymustmake him controversialand
deeplyproblematic.To say it in yetanotherway,Kiefer'shaunted images,burnt
and violatedas theyare, do not challenge the repressionsof those who refuseto
face the terrorof the past; rathertheychallengethe repressionsof those who do
remember and who do accept the burden of fascism on German national
identity.
One of the reasons why Kiefer's work-and not only the fascismand
historypaintings,but also the workfromthe mid-1980sthatfocuseson alchemy,
biblicaland Jewishthemes,and a varietyof non-Germanmyths-is so ambiguous and difficultto read is that it seems to lack any mooringsin contemporary
reality.Despite thisostensiblelack of directreferenceto the presentin his work,
Kiefer's beginningsare firmlyembedded in the German protestculture of the
1960s. He was simplywrong,forgetful,or disingenuouswhen he recentlysaid,
"In '69, when I began, no one dared talk about these things."9He mighthave
been righthad he said "no one painted these things." But talk about fascism,
German history,guilt,and the holocaustwas the order of the day at a timewhen
a whole social movement-that of the extra-parliamentary
oppositionand the
New Left inside and outside the academy- had swept the countrywith its
with the
the coping or coming-to-terms
agenda of Vergangenheitsbewaltigung,
past. Large-scale generational conflicterupted preciselyon the issue of what
parents had done or not done between 1933 and 1945 and whetherformer
membersof the Nazi partywere acceptable as high-levelpolitical leaders. The
German theatersperformedscores of documentaryplaysabout fascismand the
9.
By account of Steven Henry Madoff,"Anselm Kiefer:A Call to Memory,"ARTnews,vol. 86
(October 1987), p. 127.

ofMyth
31
holocaust (Rolf Hochhuth's Deputy[1963] and Peter Weiss's Investigation

[1965]
being the best-known),and scores of televisionprogramsaddressed the question
of fascism.Afterall, 1969 was the yearin whichWillyBrandt,a refugeefromthe
Nazis and an active member of the Norwegian underground during the war,
became chancellorand initiateda policyof detentewiththe East whichwas based
on the public acknowledgmentof "those things."
And yet,in a certain sense Kiefer is not entirelywrong. His approach to
fromwhatI would
understandingand representingthe past differedsignificantly
in
liberal
and
social-democratic
antifascist
consensusof those
the
call, shorthand,
us
of
series
of
one
Kiefer's
the
Let
take
earlyworks,
photographsentitled
years.
from
as
an
discuss
a central issue
to
1969,
Besetzungen(Occupations)
example
whichgovernsmuch of his paintingthroughoutthe 1970s. The workconsistsof
a series of photographstaken at various locations all over Europe - historical
spaces, landscapes-all of which feature the artisthimselfperforming,citing,
embodyingthe Sieg Heil gesture. As the catalogue suggests,the artistseems to
have assumed the identityof the conquering National Socialist who occupies
Europe.10The firstreactionto thiskind of workmustbe shock and dismay,and
the workanticipatesthat. A taboo has been violated. But when one looks again,
multipleironiesbegin to appear. In almostall of the photosthe Sieg Heil figureis
miniscule,dwarfedby the surroundings;the shotsare takenfromafar. In one of
the photos the figurestands in a bathtuband is seen against a backlitwindow.
There are no jubilant masses, marching soldiers, nor any other emblems of
power and imperialismthatwe know fromhistoricalfootage fromthe Nazi era.
The artistdoes not identifywiththe gestureof Nazi occupation,he ridiculesit,
satirizesit. He is properlycritical.But even thisconsiderationdoes not lay to rest
our fundamentaluneasiness. Are ironyand satire really the appropriatemode
fordealing withfascistterror?Doesn't thisseriesof photographsbelittlethe very
real terrorwhich the Sieg Heil gesture conjures up for a historicallyinformed
memory?There just seems no way out of the deeply problematic nature of
Kiefer's"occupations," thisone as well as those thatwere to followin the 1970s,
paintingsthatoccupied the equally shunnedicons and spaces of Germannational
historyand myth.
There is another dimension,however, to this work, a dimension of selfconscious mise-en-scenethat is at its conceptual core. Rather than seeing this
seriesof photos onlyas representingthe artistoccupyingEurope withthe fascist
gestureof conquest,we may,in anotherregister,see the artistoccupyingvarious
framed image-spaces: landscapes, historical buildings, interiors,precisely the
image-spacesof most of Kiefer's later paintings.But why then the Sieg Heil
gesture?I would suggestthatit be read as a conceptualgestureremindingus that
indeed Nazi culture had most effectivelyoccupied, exploited, and abused the
10.
Rosenthal,p. 7.

Anselm
1969.
Kiefer.
from
Pages
Occupations.
ZZ.
p -,g
r...F
.........
.........
INE Ell
Ot

Abah
cAll
--.
........

34
OCTOBER
power of the visual, especiallythe power of massive monumentalismand of a

confining,even disciplining,central-pointperspective.Fascismhad furthermore
perverted,abused, and sucked up whole territoriesof a German image-world,
turningnationaliconicand literarytraditionsinto mere ornamentsof power and
therebyleaving post-1945 culture witha tabula rasa that was bound to cause a
smolderingcrisisof identity.Aftertwelveyearsof an image orgywithoutprecedent in the modern world, which included everythingfrom torch marches to
politicalmass spectacles,fromthe mammothstagingof the 1936 Olympicsto the
ceaseless productionsof the Nazi filmindustrydeep into the war years, from
Albert Speer's floodlightoperas in the nightskyto the fireworksof antiaircraft
flakover burningcities,the country'sneed forimages seemed exhausted. Apart
from imported American filmsand the cult of foreign royaltyin illustrated
magazines, postwar Germany was a country without images, a landscape of
turned itselfinto the gray of conrubble and ruins that quicklyand efficiently
the
crete reconstruction,
lightenedup onlyby
iconographyof commercialadverof
The
the
the
and
fake
Heimatfilm.
countrythathad produced the
imagery
tising
Weimar cinema and a wealth of avant-gardeart in the 1920s and that would
produce the new German cinema beginningin the late 1960s was by and large
image-deadforabout twentyyears:hardlyany new departuresin film,no painting worthtalkingabout, a kind of enforcedminimalism,ground zero of a visual
amnesia.
I am reminded here of somethingWerner Herzog once stated in a somewhat differentcontext. In an interviewabout his filmshe said, "We live in a
societythat has no adequate images anymore,and, if we do not findadequate
imagesand an adequate language forour civilizationwithwhichto expressthem,
we will die out like the dinosaurs. It's as simple as that!"" The absence of
adequate imagesin postwarGermanyand the need to invent,to create images to
go on livingalso seems to propel Kiefer'sproject. He insiststhat the burden of
fascismon images has to be reflectedand worked through by any postwar
German artistworthhis or her salt. From thatperspectiveindeed most postwar
German art had to be seen as so much evasion. During the 1950s, it mainly
offeredderivationsfrom abstract expressionism,tachism,informel,and other
sanctionedmovements.As opposed to literatureand film,media
internationally
in whichthe confrontationwiththe fascistpast had become an overridingconcern duringthe 1960s, the '60s art scene in West Germanywas dominatedby the
fluxusmovement,
lightexperimentsof the Gruppe Zero, the situationist-related
and a number of experimentswithfigurationin the work of Sigmar Polke and
Gerhard Richter.The focusof mostof theseartists,whetheror not theywanted
theirart to be sociallycritical,was the present:consumercapitalismin the age of
America and television.In thiscontextKiefer'soccupationsof the fascistimage11. Imagesat theHorizon,Workshop with Werner Herzog conducted by Roger Ebert, Chicago,
Facets Multimedia,1979, p. 21.

ofMyth
35
space and of other nationalisticonographywere as much a new departure for

German art as they were a political provocation, except, of course, that this
provocationwas not widelyrecognized during the 1970s.
In that decade, Kiefer's work on myth,especiallyGerman mythand the
national tradition,could stillbe seen as an art of individualmythology,as it was
called at Documenta V in 1972. It was onlyduringthe conservative1980s, when
the issue of national identityhad become a major obsession in West Germany,
that Kiefer'schoice of medium and the politicalcontentof his paintinggot the
criticsbuzzing. Anselm Kiefer-painter of the new Right! But it would be a
mistake to collapse Kiefer's development as an artist with the political turn
toward conservatismin the 1980s. Afterall, the whole issue of national identity
firstemerged in the 1970s on the intellectualLeft and withinthe orbit of the
ecology and peace movementsbefore it became gristfor the mills of the new
Right. Kiefer's focus on Germanic iconographyin the 1970s stillhad a critical
edge, attemptingto articulate what the liberal and social democratic cultural
consensus had sealed behind a cordonsanitaireof proper coping with the past.
And his choice of medium, his experimentationson the threshold between
painting,photography,and the sculptural,also had a criticaledge in the refusal
to bow to the pieties of a teleologicallyconstructedmodernismthat saw even
remotelyrepresentationalpaintingonly as a formof regression.Representation
in Kiefer is, afterall, not just a facile returnto a premodernisttradition.It is
ratherthe attemptto make certain traditions(high-horizonlandscape painting,
romanticpainting)productivefor a kind of paintingthat represents,without,
however,being grounded in the ideology of representation,a kind of painting
thatplaces itselfquite self-consciously
afterconceptualismand minimalism.The
often-heardreproach against Kiefer's being figurativeand representational
misseshis extraordinarysensitivity
to materialssuch as straw,sand, lead, ashes,
burnt logs, ferns,and copper wire,all of whichare incorporatedimaginatively
into his canvases and more oftenthan not work against the grain of figuration
and representation.
While Kiefer's material and aestheticemploymentof figurationdoes not
me
give
ideological headaches, I think it is legitimateto ask whether Kiefer
the
indulges
contemporaryfascinationwithfascism,withterror,and withdeath.
Fascinating fascism, as Susan Sontag called it in her discussion of Leni
Riefenstahl,has been partof the internationalculturallandscape since the 1970s.
In his book Reflections
of Nazism: An Essay on Kitschand Death (1984), the
historianSaul Friedlander has analyzed it in scores of cinematic and literary
worksfromthe 1970s, rangingfromSyberberg'sOur Hitlerto Liliana Cavani's
TheNightPorterand Fassbinder'sLili Marleen,fromAlain Tournier's TheOgreto
George Steiner's The Portage to San Cristobalof A H. In addition, we have
witnessedthe rediscovery,often celebratory,of right-wingmodernistwriters
such as C6line and ErnstJiinger.How does Kiefer fitinto this phenomenon,
whichis by no means only German?To what extentmightit explain his success

OCTOBER
36
ilii
... ..
.!i
........
iiii...............
/
low;
To theUnknownPainter.1980.
Anselm
Kiefer.
outside his native Germany?Such questionsare all the more urgentbecause, I
would argue, Kiefer'sown treatmentof fascisticons seems to go fromsatireand
ironyin the 1970s to melancholydevoid of ironyin the early 1980s.
Central fora discussionof fascinatingfascismin Kieferare three series of
paintingsfromthe early 1980s: the paintingsof fascistarchitecture;the March
Heath works,whichhover between landscape painting,historypainting,and an
allegorizationof art and artistin Germanhistory;and the Margarete/Shulamite
series, which contains Kiefer's highlyabstractand mediated treatmentof the
holocaust. Together with the Meistersinger/Nuremberg
series, this trilogyof
worksbest embodies those aspects of his art that I am addressingin thisessay.

37
ofMyth
All
ff"
10,
Interior.1981.
Anselm
Kiefer.
Let me firstturnto the watercolorsand oil paintingsof fascistarchitectural
Painter(1980, 1982) and
structures:the two watercolorsentitledTo theUnknown
the two large oil paintingsof fascistarchitecturalstructuresentitledThe Stairs
(1982-83) and Interior(1981). These worksexude an overwhelmingstatism,a
monumentalmelancholy,and an intenseaestheticappeal of color, texture,and
layeringof painterlymaterialsthat can induce a deeply meditative,if not paralyzing state in the viewer. I would like to describe my own very conflicting
reactionsto them,withthe caveat thatwhat I willsketchas a sequence of three
stagesof responseand reflectionwas muchmore blurredin mymindwhen I first
saw the Kieferretrospectiveat the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

38
OCTOBER
Stage one was fascination-fascination with the visual pleasure Kiefer

bringsto the subject matterof fascistarchitecture.If seen in photographs,such
buildingswill most likelyprovoke only the Pavlovian reactionof condemnation:
everybodyknowswhat fascistarchitectureis and what it represents.Being confrontedwithKiefer'srenderingof the interiorof Albert Speer's Reichschancellery was thereforelike seeing it for the firsttime, preciselybecause "it" was
neitherSpeer's famousbuildingnor a "realistic"representationof it. And whatI
saw was ruins,images of ruins,the ruinsof fascismin the mode of allegorythat
seemed to hold the promise of a beyond, to suggestan as yetabsent reconciliation. True, there is the almost overbearingmonumentalismof size and subject
matter of these paintings,with central point perspective driven to its most
insidious extreme. But then this monumentalismof central perspectiveitself
seems to be underminedby the claimsthe multiplylayeredsurfacesmake on the
viewer, by the fragilityand transitorinessof the materials Kiefer uses in his
compositions,by the eerie effectshe achieves in his use of photographyoverlaid
by thickoil paint, emulsion, shellac, and straw. Dark and somber as theyare,
thatbelies their
these paintingsassume a ghostlikeluminosityand immateriality
like
dream
structuresthat
architectural
images,
monumentality.They appear
made to appear as ruins:the resurrectedruinof
seem intact,but are intriguingly
fascismas simulacrum,as the painterlyrealization of a contemporarystate of
mind.
At thispoint I became skepticalof my own firstreaction. Stage two was a
pervasive feelingof having been had, having been lured into that fascinating
fascism,havingfallenforan aestheticizationof fascismwhichtodaycomplements
fascism'sown strategies,so eloquentlyanalyzed by Walter Benjamin some fifty
yearsago, of turningpoliticsintoaestheticspectacle.I rememberedthe romantic
appeal of ruins and the inherentambivalence of the ruin as celebrationof the
past,of nostalgiaand feelingsof loss. And I recalled the real ruinsleftby fascism,
the ruins of bombed-out cities and the destructionleft in the wake of fascist
invasion and retreat.Where, I asked myself,do these paintingsreflecton this
historicalreality?Even as images of fascistruins,theyare stillmonumentsto the
demagogic representationof power, and they affirm,in their overwhelming
monumentalismand relentlessuse of central-pointperspective,the power of
representationthat modernismhas done so much to question and to reflect
critically.The questionbecame: Is thisfascistpaintingat one remove?And ifit is,
how do I save myselffrombeing sucked into these giganticspacial voids, from
being paralyzed by melancholy,frombecoming complicitin a visionthat seems
to preventmourningand stiflepoliticalreflection?
Finally,my initial thoughtsabout Kiefer's "occupations" asserted themselves again. What if Kiefer, here too, intended to confrontus with our own
repressionsof the fascistimage-sphere?Perhaps his project was precisely to
counter the by now often hallow litany about the fascistaestheticizationof
politics,to counterthe merelyrationalexplanationsof fascistterrorby recreat-

ofMyth
39
ing the aestheticlure of fascismfor the presentand thus forcingus to confront

the possibilitythat we ourselves are not immune to what we so rationallycondemn and dismiss.Steeped in a melancholyfascinationwith the past, Kiefer's
work makes visiblea psychicdispositiondominantin postwarGermanythathas
been describedas the inabilityto mourn. If mourningimpliesan active working
throughof a loss, then melancholyis characterizedby an inabilityto overcome
that loss and in some instances even a continuingidentificationwith the lost
object of love. This is the cultural context in which Kiefer's reworkingof a
regressive,even reactionarypainterlyvocabularyassumes its politicallyand aestheticallymeaningfuldimension.How else but throughobsessivequotationcould
he conjure up the lure of what once enthralled Germany and has not been
acknowledged, let alone properly worked through? How else but through
painterlymelancholyand nightmarishevocationcould he confrontthe blockages
in the contemporaryGerman psyche?At the same time,the riskof confronting
contemporaryGerman culturewithrepresentationsof a collectivelost object of
love is equally evident: it may strengthenthe staticand melancholydisposition
toward fascismratherthan overcome it.
Here, then,is the dilemma:whetherto read thesepaintingsas a melancholy
fixationon the dreamlikeruinsof fascismthat locks the viewerinto complicity,
or, instead,as a critiqueof the spectator,who is caught up in a complex web of
melancholy,fascination,and repression.
Even the two elementscommon to several of the paintingsand watercolors
in this series-the inscription"to the unknownpainter" and the dead center
positioningof a palette on a black pole -will not help us out of this dilemma.
Surely,as a double referenceto the unknownsoldier and to art, these linguistic
and conceptualinscriptionsin the midstof these fascistarchitecturalmonuments
tend to break the spell of the image as pure and unmediatedand to produce an
estrangementeffect.Here as elsewhereKieferrelieson linguisticinscriptionand
encoding as methods of underminingthe false immediacyof visual representation. His images have to be both seen and read.
But how estrangingare these inscriptionsultimately?
If one remembersthe
classical topos of parallelingthe heroismof the warriorwiththe heroismof the
genial artist,then Kiefer's recourse to the trivialromanticmotifof the monumentto the unknownsoldier could be read as a slightlydisplaced critiqueof the
mythof artisticgenius.2 Such a reading,however,seems a bit forced.Afterall,
the notions of the unknownsoldier and of the unknown,unrecognized genius
are themselvesintegralto the mythsof warriorheroismand aestheticgeniusthat
have been major props of middle-classculture since romanticism.A potentially
criticalstrategyof breaking visual immediacythrough linguisticmarkersand
12. Thus Jorgen Harten in the catalogue of the 1984 Kieferexhibitionin DOsseldorf,Paris, and
Jerusalem,AnselmKiefer,Dusseldorf,StadtischeKunsthalle, 1984, pp. 41ff.

40
OCTOBER
conceptuallyestrangingsigns on the work's surface ultimatelyserves only to

reinforcethe mythit ostensiblyundermines.Furthermore,the undocumented
heroismof the unknownsoldier is displaced here into the heroismof that very
well-knownpainterAnselm K., who may himselfhave fallenforthe lure he had
set out to combat. Much the same, by the way, can be said of Kiefer's earlier
attemptsto constructGerman genealogies in paintingssuch as Germany'sSpiritual Heroes (1973), Icarus (1976), and Ways of WorldlyWisdom(1976-77).
Kiefer'sneed to positionhimselfeffectively
at the end of a genealogyof German
art and thoughtgetsin the wayof whatevercriticalintentionshe mighthave had.
PainterKieferdoes not celebratethe linkbetween
To be sure, in To theUnknown
aestheticsand war as the Italian futuristsor the right-wingmodernistsof the
Weimar Republic did. Instead of an aestheticsof terror,one mightsay, we get
melancholyand narcissism,the narcissismof a postfascistGerman painterwhose
frozengaze is directedat two imaginarylost objects: the ruinsof fascism(buildings, landscapes,mindscapes)and the ruins,as it were, of the house of painting
itself.These two sets of ruinsare pictoriallyequated. Kieferends up collapsing
the differencebetweenthe mythof the end of paintingand the defeatof fascism.
This is a conceit that seems to draw in highlyproblematicwayson the phantasrequiringa worldmagoria that fascismitselfis the ultimateGesamtkunstwerk,
historicalGotterdammerungat its end: Berlin 1945 as the last act of Hitler's
infatuationwithRichard Wagner and Kiefer's workas a memorialto that fatal
linkage between art and violence. Nero Paints-indeed.
But such a negativereadingof the architecturepaintingsis contradictedby
the Margarete/Shulamiteseries, a series of paintingsbased on Paul Celan's
famous "Death Fugue," a poem that captures the horror of Auschwitz in a
sequence of highlystructuredmythicimages. In these paintings,where Kiefer
turnsto the victimsof fascism,the melancholygaze at the past, dominantin the
architecturepaintings,is transformedinto a genuine sense of mourning.And
Kiefer'sseeminglyself-indulgent
and narcissisticobsessionwiththe fateof paintin
its
reveals
itself
here
broader
historicaland political dimension. In the
ing
German context,Kiefer'sturningto Paul Celan, theJewishpoet who surviveda
Nazi concentrationcamp, has deep resonance. In the 1950s, Theodor Adorno
had claimed that afterAuschwitzlyricpoetrywas no longer possible. The unimaginable horrorsof the holocaust had irretrievablypushed poetic language,
especially that writtenin German, to the edges of silence. But Celan demonstratedthatthisultimatecrisisof poetic language could stillbe articulatedwithin
language itselfwhen he confrontedthe ultimatechallenge of writinga poem
about the veryeventthatseemed to have made all language incommensurate.3s I
would suggest that in the Margarete/Shulamiteseries, especially with Your
GoldenHair, Margarete(1981) and Shulamite(1983), Kiefersucceeds in doing for
paintingwhat Celan did for poetrymore than thirtyyearsago. In thiscontext,
13.
The poem's fulltext is given in Rosenthal,pp. 95ff.

ofMyth
41
Kiefer'sequation of fascismwiththe end of paintingtakeson a different

connotation. For him, too, as for Celan and Adorno, it is indeed fascismthat has
brought about the ultimatecrisisof art in this century.Fascism has not only
revealed the extentto whichpoetryand paintingcan never be commensurateto
the world of historicalviolence. It has also demonstratedhow politicscan ruthlesslyexploitthe aestheticdimensionand harnessit in the serviceof violenceand
destruction.
The Margarete/Shulamitepaintings,whichdraw on the refrainof Celan's
poem "your golden hair Margarete,your ashen hair Shulamith[Shulamite],"
avoid figurationor any otherdirectrepresentationof fascistviolence. In conceptualistfashion,Your GoldenHair, Margareteconjures up the curvatureof the
German woman's hair witha bow of strawimposed on the center of a barren,
high-horizonlandscape. A paintedblack curve echoingthe shape of Margarete's
hair evokes Shulamite,and the titleof the paintingis inscribedin black above
both. In thispainting,the black of Shulamite'shair becomes one withthe black
Anselm
Your GoldenHair,Margarete.1981.
Kiefer.
......................

OCTOBER
42
Ilk
"Al
fV"",
Wilhelm
Kreis.FuneralHallfortheGreatGerman
in theHall ofSoldiers.
c. 1939.
Soldiers,
markingsof the land-again an indicationthatKiefer'sdarkgroundcolorsrefer
primarilyto death in historyratherthanto mythicrenewal,as is so oftenclaimed.
And the combinationof real strawwithblack paint furthermorepointsto the
Nurembergand Meistersingerpaintingsfromthe early 1980s, paintingsthatuse
the same colorsand materialsin order to evoke the conjunctionof Nurembergas
site of Wagner's Meistersinger
and of the spectacular Nazi party conventions
filmedby Leni Riefenstahlin TriumphoftheWill.
But perhapsthe mostpowerfulpaintingin the seriesinspiredby Paul Celan
WilhelmKreis's fascist
is the one entitledShulamite,in whichKiefertransforms
for
the
Funeral
Hall
for
Great
in the Berlin Hall of
the
German
Soldiers
design
Soldiers (c. 1939) intoa hauntingmemorialto the victimsof the holocaust.The
cavernous space, blackened by the firesof cremation,clearly remindsus of a
giganticbrickoven, threateningin its veryproportions,whichare exacerbated
of
by Kiefer'suse of an extremelylow-levelperspective.No crude representation
or
the
residues
of
human
are
shown.
Almost
cremation,
only
suffering
gassing

43
ofMyth
-V
I
41
4118,
Irlll?
j
_':t'
61A
41'
'Ex.
?lp
n't
f'4
Ale
Anselm
Shulamite.1983.
Kiefer.
hidden in the depth of thishuge emptyspace we see the seven tinyflamesof a

memorial candelabra dwarfed by the horror of this murderousspace. Kiefer
succeeds here in avoiding all the ambiguitythat haunted his other paintingsof
fascistarchitecture.And he is successfulbecause he evokes the terrorperpetrated by Germans on their victims,thus opening a space for mourning,a
dimensionthatis absentfromthe paintingsI discussedearlier.By transforming
a
fascistarchitecturalspace, dedicated to the death cult of the Nazis, intoa memorial for Nazism's victims,he creates an effectof genuine criticalUmfunktionierung,as Brechtwould have called it,an effectthatrevealsfascism'sgenocidaltelos
in its own celebratorymemorialspaces.
Let me conclude thesereflectionson Kieferby comingback to mythemeof
myth,painting,and historyas it is articulatedin one of Kiefer's mostpowerful
works,the paintingentitledIcarus-March Sand (1981). This paintingexpresses
paradigmaticallyhow Kiefer's best work derives its strengthfromthe at times
unbearable tensionbetween the terrorof German historyand the intenselong-

OCTOBER
44
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hp
......
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OF
Anselm
Icarus-March Sand. 1981.
Kiefer.
ing to get beyondit withthe help of myth.Icarus-March Sand combinesGreek
mythwiththe image of a Prussian,now East German,landscape that,to a West
German, is as legendaryand mythicas the storyof Icarus's fall. The painting
does not articulatea passionate scream of horrorand sufferingthat we might
associate with expressionism.Instead we get the voiceless crashingof the two
charredwingsof Icarus in the mythiclandscapeof the BrandenburgerHeide, the
March Heath, siteof so manybattlesin Prussianmilitaryhistory.Kiefer'sIcarus
is not the Icarus of classical antiquity,son of an engineer whose hubris was
chastized by the gods when the sun melted his wings as he soared upward.
Kiefer's Icarus is the modern painter,the palette withits thumbholereplacing
the head. Icarus has become an allegoryof painting,anotherversionof Kiefer's
many flyingpalettes,and he crashes not because of the sun's heat above, but
because of the firesburning beneath him in the Prussian landscape. Only a
distantlyluminousglow on the high plane of the paintingsuggeststhe presence
of the sun. It is a settingsun, and nightfallseems imminent.Icarus is not soaring

ofMyth
45
toward the infinite;he is, as it were, being pulled down to the ground. It is
history,German history,that stuntsthe painterlyflighttoward transcendence.
Painting crashes, redemption through painting is no longer possible, mythic
vision itselfis fundamentallycontaminated,polluted, violated by history.The
strongerthe strangleholdof history,the more intense the impossibledesire to
escape intomyth.But thenmythrevealsitselfas chained to historyratherthanas
history'stranscendentother. The desire forrenewal,rebirth,and reconciliation
that speaks to us fromthese paintingsmaybe overwhelming.But Kiefer'swork
also knows that this desire will not be fulfilled,is beyond human grasp. The
potentialfor rebirthand renewal that fire,mythicfire,may hold for the earth
does not extend to human life. Kiefer's firesare the firesof history,and they
lighta visionthatis indeed apocalyptic,but one thatraises the hope of redemption only to forecloseit.


Anselm Kiefer - The Terror of History, The Temptation of Myth: Huyssen

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Anselm Kiefer: The Terror of History, the Temptation of Myth

Author(s): Andreas Huyssen

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