Dear Kathleen, I'm so lucky to be able to see this work whenever I am in Oslo (one hour by train), and I understand what my old friend Ole Robert Sunde says (we were "comrades in arms" as military deniers in 1971-72).
He says that for him this is a German encounter with Jewish history. Kiefer was born in Germany after the war. Sunde refers to Jorge Luis Borges «The Library of Babylon». No two books are alike. They are written in languages no one understands. Proust has said in an essay that all great art is written in a foreign language. We do not understand it. Sunde interprets it as meaning that 300 books got wet and they are standing here drying. Each book weighs 300 kilos, a total of 30 tons. We can not open them; it is a closed library, but at the same time it tells how much books mean to us. What is a world without books? Then we are back to Germany again, where they burned books. It is incomprehensible. This is art at its finest. We do not understand it, but we are fascinated by it.
Thank you for this. I listened to Ole Robert Sunde's YouTube several times. I don't speak Norwegian, but I can puzzle out what he is saying. Tell huim thank you me.Maybe he could add a translation to the YouTube? I see some people are asking for this. I did add a list of his poetry to the English Wikipedia because some of what I find for this substack I add to Wikipedia. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ole_Robert_Sunde).Next time you go to Oslo please send me a picture.
My own pitiful commentary (without having seen Kiefer's work in person) is that beloved books are indeed like lead ingots; one carries them around from place to place at great personal effort and expense because one cannot bear to be parted from them.
I am not sure, that if you put the remnants back together with the original sculpture, that it would be destroyed so much as just damaged; the invaders torched Ashurbanipal's library and the all the raw clay was fired into almost indestrucable hard clay tablets.
elm
it seems very fitting that books of lead would survive anyway
Dear Kathleen, I'm so lucky to be able to see this work whenever I am in Oslo (one hour by train), and I understand what my old friend Ole Robert Sunde says (we were "comrades in arms" as military deniers in 1971-72).
He says that for him this is a German encounter with Jewish history. Kiefer was born in Germany after the war. Sunde refers to Jorge Luis Borges «The Library of Babylon». No two books are alike. They are written in languages no one understands. Proust has said in an essay that all great art is written in a foreign language. We do not understand it. Sunde interprets it as meaning that 300 books got wet and they are standing here drying. Each book weighs 300 kilos, a total of 30 tons. We can not open them; it is a closed library, but at the same time it tells how much books mean to us. What is a world without books? Then we are back to Germany again, where they burned books. It is incomprehensible. This is art at its finest. We do not understand it, but we are fascinated by it.
Thank you for this. I listened to Ole Robert Sunde's YouTube several times. I don't speak Norwegian, but I can puzzle out what he is saying. Tell huim thank you me.Maybe he could add a translation to the YouTube? I see some people are asking for this. I did add a list of his poetry to the English Wikipedia because some of what I find for this substack I add to Wikipedia. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ole_Robert_Sunde).Next time you go to Oslo please send me a picture.
Great comment, Anders; thank you.
My own pitiful commentary (without having seen Kiefer's work in person) is that beloved books are indeed like lead ingots; one carries them around from place to place at great personal effort and expense because one cannot bear to be parted from them.
I am not sure, that if you put the remnants back together with the original sculpture, that it would be destroyed so much as just damaged; the invaders torched Ashurbanipal's library and the all the raw clay was fired into almost indestrucable hard clay tablets.
elm
it seems very fitting that books of lead would survive anyway
There is so much written about Anselm Kiefer but I think you have seen into his alchemy.
Well, thank you for the compliment! Honest to God, I've never heard of the guy.
elm
seems obvious though
Just - wow.