Anselm Kiefer

Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate, although the overall tonality is slightly deeper in the original. Condition: This work is in very good condition. The sheet is attached verso to the backing board in several places. The upper edge is slightly deckled and there are several artist's pinholes in all four corner. All surface irregularities are in keeping with the artist's choice of medium and working process.
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Die Himmelspaläste is part of Kiefer’s on-going exploration of the history of heaven and earth. It refers directly to the ancient Hebrew book the Sefer Hechaloth which describes an ascent through seven holy palaces to reach the Hechaloth, or seventh palace, where God is revealed to the enlightened. A mixture of painting and collaged photographs, Kiefer’s work is structured around a spiral of disjointed concrete staircases that nominally lead between the seven palaces. The staircase is a common motif as pathway to heaven in Judeo-Christian culture and it has added significance for Kiefer who saw architecture as an emblem of transcendental aspiration. Yet in Kiefer’s creation, the pathway to heaven is crooked and full of false starts. The numbers that indicate the palaces are non-sequential and the staircases which initially lead up the canvas then turn in on themselves before petering out into the centre of the canvas.

This structural ambiguity is intentional. Kiefer has long been fascinated with the role of heaven and earth in a modern world that has displaced them both literally and spiritually. Intrigued by the concept of heaven as a time rather than a place, much of Kiefer’s work seeks to analyse this, as he explains: “It’s about connecting with an older knowledge and trying to discover continuities in why we search for heaven” (the artist quoted in: Anselm Kiefer: Heaven and Earth, Fort Worth 2005, p. 166).

In Die Himmelspaläste Kiefer creates a modern vision of our search for heaven in which it is made clear that the old ways no longer suffice. The broken staircases, photographs of the long stretches of concrete stairs he builds and then breaks down, are the only recognisable feature of Kiefer’s imagined purgatory and they lead to nowhere in a world where direction is extraneous and symbols move in all directions. The work is ingrained with Kiefer’s scepticism in the face of any imagined hope; a scepticism that is part of the post-war cultural inheritance typical of many of his generation. For Kiefer there can be no promise of heaven – definitive answers are inherently untrustworthy – instead he encourages a new focus on the journey: “I follow the ancient tradition of going up and down. The palaces of heaven are still a mystery. The procedures and formulae surrounding this journey will always be debated. I am making my own investigation… this is not just about traveling through palaces, but traveling through yourself in order to know yourself” (the artist quoted in: Ibid., p. 176).