Untitled

Anselm Kiefer

1996 · Woodcut, shellac and acrylic on paper on canvas · Modern and Contemporary Art

This work belongs to a series of images that Kiefer created by juxtaposing the dark fossilized forms of sunflowers with images of a naked man. For Kiefer, dead sunflowers with their heads packed with seeds are potent symbols of death and rebirth. Here, they are joined by a figure who resembles the artist but may be Robert Fludd, a sixteenth-century English occultist who believed that every plant in the world had its own equivalent star in the firmament. In this dramatic woodcut presentation, with its attendant nationalistic connotations, Kiefer suggests a link between the individual and the cosmos.

Artist

Anselm Kiefer

Date

1996

Medium

Woodcut, shellac and acrylic on paper on canvas

Department

Modern and Contemporary Art

Credit line

Gift of Anne and Anthony d'Offay, in honor of William S. Lieberman, 1998