Notebooks, Volume 1, 1998-99 (Paperback)

Anselm Kiefer

ISBN 10: 0857427040 / ISBN 13: 9780857427045

Published by Seagull Books London Ltd, Greenford, 2019

About this Item

Paperback. The power in Anselm Kiefer's images is rivalled by his writings on nature and history, literature and antiquity, and mysticism and mythology.This first volume of his Notebooks spans the years 19981999 and traces the origins and creative process of Kiefer's visual works during this period. Kiefer here returns constantly to his touchstones: sixteenth-century alchemist Robert Fludd, German romantic poet Novalis, Martin Heidegger, Ingeborg Bachmann and Robert Musil, among others. The entries unmask the process by which his artworks are informed by his reading-and vice versa-and track the development of the works he created in the late 1990s. The diaries reveal Kiefer's strong affinity for language and let readers witness the process of ideas, experiences and adventures slowly transcending the limits of art, achieving meaning in and beyond their medium. The first volume of Notebooks spans the years 1998-1999 and traces the origins and creative process of Kiefers visual works during this period. Shipping may be from our Sydney, NSW warehouse or from our UK or US warehouse, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9780857427045

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Notebooks, Volume 1, 1998-99 (Paperback)
• Publisher: Seagull Books London Ltd, Greenford
• Publication Date: 2019
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0857427040
• ISBN 13: 9780857427045
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

“For a long time, it was not clear if I would become a writer or an artist,” says Anselm Kiefer, whose paintings and sculptures have made him one of the most significant and influential artists of our time. Since he was awarded the Peace Prize by the German Book Trade in 2008, his essays, speeches, and lectures have gradually received more attention, but until now his diary accounts have been almost completely unknown. The power in Kiefer’s images, however, is rivaled by his writings on nature and history, literature and antiquity, and mysticism and mythology.

The first volume of Notebooks spans the years 1998-1999 and traces the origins and creative process of Kiefer’s visual works during this period. In this volume, Kiefer returns constantly to his touchstones: sixteenth-century alchemist Robert Fludd, German romantic poet Novalis, Martin Heidegger, Ingeborg Bachmann, Robert Musil, and many other writers and thinkers. The entries reveal the process by which his artworks are informed by his reading—and vice versa—and track the development of the works he created in the late 1990s. Translated into English for the first time by Tess Lewis, the diaries reveal Kiefer’s strong affinity for language and let readers witness the process of thoughts, experiences, and adventures slowly transcending the limits of art, achieving meaning in and beyond their medium.

Praise for Kiefer

“His works recall, in this sense, the grand tradition of history painting, with its notion about the elevated role of art in society, except that they do not presume moral certainty. What makes Kiefer’s work so convincing . . . is precisely its ambiguity and self-doubt, its rejection of easy solutions, historical amnesia, and transcendence.”—New York Times

“Wordiness for Kiefer is painterliness. The library and the gallery, the book and the frame inseparable, even interchangeable, in his monumental archive of human memory. Not since Picasso’s Guernica have pictures demanded so urgently that we studiously reflect and recollect in their presence.”—Simon Schama

About the Author

Anselm Kiefer, born in 1945 in Donaueschingen, studied law and Romance languages before turning to painting. A student of Horst Antes and Joseph Beuys, he is known for major works such as Parsifal, Zweistromland, and Mohn und Gedächtnis. In 2015, the Centre Pompidou in Paris dedicated a major retrospective to his work.