Art and Architecture : Anselm Kiefer/architectural creation/art/hermeneutics/history

 

Art and Architecture : Anselm Kiefer and David Chipperfield at the RA

VITRINES : Art Spaces/interiors/interventions. 

Anselm Kiefer : 

In the Annenberg Courtyard

Velimir Khlebnikov: Fates of Nations: The New Theory of War

Anselm Kiefer often dedicates his works to intriguing figures of the past, be they poets or philosophers. This piece is one of a number of works emerging from Kiefer’s ongoing exploration of the Russian Futurist avant-garde writer, theorist and absurdist Velimir Khlebnikov (1885-1922).

After years of study, Khlebnikov concluded that a major sea battle took place every 317 years, or multiples thereof. Kiefer celebrates this heroic and ludicrous activity with a work that is both monument and anti-monument. Measuring almost 17 metres in total and consisting of two large glass vitrines, Kiefer creates a transparent, reflective sea-scape in three dimensions that calls to mind the Romantic sublime of painters from JMW Turner to Caspar David Friedrich. Kiefer uses the frames of the vitrines to stage a mysterious drama, in which viewers, seeing each other and their own reflections, become participants.

Keywords: Anselm Kiefer architecture art hermeneutics history

The Architectural Lessons of Anselm Kiefer's La Ribaute

Stephen Wischer.

This article examines the architectural significance of Anselm Kiefer’s situated art practice, exploring how relationships of poetry, history and culture, presented across all of his work, provide vital lessons for architectural thinking and doing. Kiefer’s creation of La Ribaute, outside Barjac, France, is particularly well suited to the study of a hermeneutic approach to architectural creation, since the reinterpretation of historical and mythical themes across painting, sculpture, earthworks and architecture critically situates modern creative practice within the larger continuum of human culture and knowledge.

Stephen Wischer is an Associate Professor of Architecture at North Dakota State University, where his teaching of history/theory seminars and design studios emphasize interdisciplinary relationships between art, architecture, writing and philosophy. His artwork and architectural investigation involve intensive process-based explorations which have been exhibited in both Canada and the United States. His doctoral research at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, explores hermeneutic readings of artistic creation and historical texts in relation to architectural praxis.