Erotik im Fernen Osten Oder
Category: Books,Arts & Photography,History & Criticism
Erotik im Fernen Osten Oder Details
Review Erotik im Fernen Osten oder by Anselm Kiefer George Braziller * Now available The art of Anselm Kiefer is a mud-spattered miscellany of dun, brown, and rust, thatched and encrusted with everything from ash and straw to glass and shellac -- pretty, it ain't. So this new collection of previously unseen watercolors will surprise most, and disappoint those looking for more of Kiefer's somber excavations of Nazi atrocity and German civilian culpability. These vibrant watercolors, created from snapshots taken during a 1974 trip to the coast of Norway, are dripping with lighthearted violets and blues, and are as expansive and kinetic as his well-known works are claustrophobic and grim: Porphyrious icebergs bleed into coal-black ships foregrounded against deep blue Norwegian skies and white luminescent cliffs. Though they took three years to create, there's such a vital immediacy to these paintings it feels like they were done on the deck of the ship -- all the fierce, bright clarity of a northern winter is captured on the page. The brash force of the seascapes is contrasted with the warmth of the erotic nudes that make up the second half of the book, a series of studies done in oranges and reds that belies the idea Kiefer ever despaired of the human condition. -Jonny Diamond -- The L Magazine Read more
Reviews
How one reacts to art is so personal and also needs some time. The latent vitality of the dense surface has fascinated me in Kiefer's Auschwitz grand paintings and later more abstract collage images of wreckage, debris. The blue paintings in this book have a richness without any overtone of destruction. However, as I looked through the pages the progression became didactic. If you like that, this is a beautiful book...until you get to pink. The rose stain nudes are so thin and watery, they could have been tossed off by Beuys..who I see was once Kiefer's teacher. This is not interesting wet, wet brushwork. But as I said, liking or not is personal.
