Anselm Kiefer ”SAMSON”. 2011

Oil, acrylic, emulsion binder, shellac, charcoal and lead object over photograph, on cardboard. 102 × 165 cm (40 ⅛ × 65 in.). Titled in charcoal upper left: SAMSON. On the reverse, a label from Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris/Salzburg. [3218] Framed, Oil, acrylic, emulsion binder, shellac, charcoal and lead object over photograph, on cardboard. 102 × 165 cm (40 ⅛ × 65 in.). Titled in charcoal upper left: SAMSON. On the reverse, a label from Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris/Salzburg. [3218] Framed, Private Collection, Austria (at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Salzburg, acquired), Private Collection, Austria (at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Salzburg, acquired), Catalogues raisonnés/certificates: The work is registered in the artist’s archive, Anselm Kiefer. Alkahest. Salzburg, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, 2011, ill. p. 95 / Anselm Kiefer. Die Ungeborenen. Paris, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, 2012/13, ill. p. 136, “A ruin is not a catastrophe. It is the moment when something new can begin,” Anselm Kiefer has said. Like the alchemists, he explains, the artist merely accelerates the transformations inherent in things. For Kiefer, lead, which he has used in his paintings since 1978, contains “a spark of light”, a latent potential for transformation. It is a metal associated with heaviness, yet at the same time a fundamental material of alchemy. Born in Donaueschingen in 1945, Kiefer first attracted widespread attention with his “Besetzungen” (Occupations) of 1969, a series of photographs in which he depicted himself giving the Nazi salute at historic sites across Europe. After studying under Joseph Beuys, he represented Germany alongside Georg Baselitz at the Venice Biennale in 1980. History and guilt, the poetry of Paul Celan, and later alchemy and Kabbalah have all played a defining role in his work. The retrospectives at the Royal Academy in 2014 and the Centre Pompidou in 2015/16 confirmed his standing as one of the most important artists of our time. “SAMSON” belongs to the 2011 group of works entitled “Alkahest”, named after the alchemists’ universal solvent, believed capable of dissolving any substance. To create these works, Kiefer lays his paintings on the ground and pours water over them, sometimes mixed with dissolved pigments. Rocks and mountains, seemingly permanent features of the world, are thus subjected to erosion. Here, dissolution is not the end of a process but a prerequisite for transformation. The pale, seemingly washed-out surface of emulsion binder, shellac and acrylic embodies this approach. It partly obscures a photograph of a colonnaded hall while allowing other sections to emerge. Attached to the lower edge is a tong-like object made of lead. The inscription in charcoal at the upper left refers directly to the biblical narrative. According to the Book of Judges, Samson, a Nazirite whose uncut hair embodies the source of his strength, is betrayed by Delilah and blinded by the Philistines. In the temple, he braces himself against the two central pillars, bringing the building down upon himself and his enemies. His God-given strength ultimately turns against him, collapsing victory and destruction into a single moment. Kiefer does not depict the catastrophe itself, but rather the space in which it is about to unfold. Through the interplay of biblical subject matter, photographic imagery and the material language of lead, the work brings together the essential strands that continue to shape his oeuvre. In the process of erosion and dissolution set in motion by Kiefer, destruction does not mark an endpoint. Instead, a new pictorial reality emerges from the disintegrating material. AvS

Stima:€120,000

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