The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of March 28, 2024

Der Kyffhäuser

Der Kyffhäuser

c. 1981
Location: not on view

Description

During the last 40 years, Anselm Kiefer has gained a reputation as one of his generation's most important artists. He has produced a remarkable body of work distinguished by formal invention, diverse subject matter, and often controversial content. This image depicts the cellar of Kiefer's studio, where he constructed a pool in which an artist's palette floats. To suggest a complex, discontinuous interior, Kiefer painted abstract marks and arrows across two joined photographic prints. As a fantasy of nationalist patriotism with disturbing echoes of the Third Reich, the title Der Kyffhäuser refers to the mountain where some Germans believed the 12th-century Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I slept, waiting to be awakened to reestablish the lost glory of the past. In reinterpreting the myth, Kiefer substituted an artist's palette for the emperor's sword and an artist's studio for the hidden mountain cave.
  • "1993 Annual Report." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 81, no. 6 (1994): 143-218. Mentioned: p. 171, p. 179 www.jstor.org
    Cleveland Museum of Art, Tom E Hinson. Catalogue of Photography. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1996. Mentioned and Reproduced: P. 60-61, 216
  • CMA, November 20,1996 - February 2, 1997: "Legacy of Light: Master Photographs from the Cleveland Museum of Art," see Catalogue of Photography, pp. 60-61.
    Legacy of Light: Master Photographs from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 24, 1996-February 2, 1997).
    CMA, September 13 - November 27, 1994: "Recent Acquisitions: Prints, Drawings, Photographs," no exhibition catalogue.
  • {{cite web|title=Der Kyffhäuser|url=false|author=Anselm Kiefer|year=c. 1981|access-date=28 March 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1993.127