
Alan Davie
Orange Jumper
1960
Not on View
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Anselm Kiefer
1981
In 1945, Paul Celan composed a poem titled "Death Fugue" from the concentration camp where he was imprisoned. The poem contraposes two women: Shulamith, one of the camp’s Jewish workers, and Margarete, an Aryan mistress of the presiding Gestapo officer. In this sculptural painting, Kiefer draws on Celan’s poem as a means of exploring the complex relationships between German self-identity and world history. The effects of war scar the landscape of Germany. Ash covers the flowers in the lower right corner while straw is set like jail-bars across the foreground. The canvas documents a process of transformation: straw disintegrates into ash when exposed to fire. Through this, the ghosts of Shulamith and Margarete are evoked: reduced only to their contrasting hair; made of the same element but set in opposition by the fires of history.
Not on View
Artist | Anselm Kiefer |
Original Title | Dein goldenes Haar Margarethe |
Date | 1981 |
Medium | Acrylic, emulsion, charcoal and straw on burlap |
Dimensions | 118 x 145 cm |
Credit line | Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, Hannelore B. and Rudolph B. Schulhof Collection, bequest of Hannelore B. Schulhof, 2012 |
Accession | 2012.74 |
Collection | Schulhof Collection |
Type | Painting |
Copy caption
Not on View
Alan Davie
1960
Not on View
Anselm Kiefer
1981
Not on View
Kazimir Malevich
ca. 1916
On view
Unrecorded artist
early 20th century
Not on View