Galerie Thaddeaus Ropac, Paris
Acquired by the present owner from the above

Paris, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Anselm Kiefer: Die Ungeborenen, October 2012 - February 2013, pp. 52-53, illustrated

This work is in very good condition overall. The painting surface has noticeable craquelure throughout, which is inherent to the medium and the artist's intentions. There are two prominent vertical surface cracks which appear completely stable and inherent to the painting. There are small unobtrusive losses along the top and bottom edges of the painting which could be original to the work. The hanging elements show signs of significant oxidation and wear, which is inherent to their found nature and the artist's intentions. Under ultraviolet light inspection there is no evidence of restoration. Unframed.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

From the heady torrents of distinctively earthy impasto in Anselm Kiefer's Die Ungeborenen emerge intimations of a landscape rooted to its own mortality and history. “Rubble is like the blossom of a plant,” said Kiefer in his 2008 acceptance speech for the Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels, “It is the radiant high point of an incessant metabolism, the beginning of a rebirth” (Anselm Kiefer quoted in: Richard Davey, ‘In the Beginning is the End and in the End is the Beginning,’ in: Exh. Cat., London, Royal Academy of Arts, Anselm Kiefer, 2014, p. 49). This nascent potentiality is apparent in the present work’s sibylline title Die Ungeborenen, which translates from German as "The Unborn"—a notion that Kiefer has been grappling with for many years. Attesting to the importance of the present work, other works from the Die Ungeborenen series can be found in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art, New York and Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven and formed the title of Kiefer’s solo show, which inaugurated Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac’s new exhibition space in Paris Pantin in 2012.

Kiefer approaches the subject of the unborn with unbounded curiosity, and, exploring an emotive discourse of the title Die Ungeborenen Kiefer describes the term as “the desire of not wanting to be born” (Anselm Kiefer quoted in: Exhibition, Paris, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Anself Kiefer: Die Ungeborenen Press Release, 2012, online resource). Expanding on this premise Kiefer assumes the possibility of divine creation by eschewing Biblical stories with typically Kieferian sobriety: “Cry of the prophets, the revolt of Job. It would have been better if you had never been born! ... The retrograde movement of creation. Theodicy, the accident of creation, God’s regret to have fathered this ungrateful being, this outlaw, who does not abide to the contract” (Ibid.). Although an atheist, Kiefer is nevertheless fascinated by mankind’s dependence on divine solutions and speculating God’s existence allows Kiefer dramatic recourse to explore and critique the expanded spirituality of mankind. Through Kiefer’s dogmatic conceptualization, the title Die Ungeborenen therefore imbues the painting not o♌nly with the weight of mortality and emptiness, but also the boundlessꦡ possibilities, both good and bad, offered up by religion.

Yet, these abstract and somewhat transcendent ideas are grounded in a definite sense of reality insofar that Kiefer has masterfully merged form with formless so that individual objects appear to emerge and dissolve simultaneously into the sculpted landscape of paint. Through his liberal application of materials onto canvas, Kiefer infuses Die Ungeborenen with the spiritual majesty of great Abstract Expressionist works whilst concurrently employing a potent visual and material narrative; as Kiefer describes it, painting is a "ceaseless shuttling back and forth between nothing and something, a constant going from one state to another" (Anselm Kiefer, et. al., Art Will Survive its Ruins: Anselm Kiefer at the Collège de France, Paris 2011, p. 191). Oscillating between chaos and order, Die Ungeborenen is reflective of Kiefer’s own interclasped conceptions of the world, which link the disorder of stars with the formality of the atom, mortality with transcendence and death with creation. Not only is Kiefer here revealing his inimitable skill as a painter, but by basing Die Ungeborenen on the abstract and also on the figurative, he allows the♈ work to brim with bot💎h emotion and history.

Kiefer was born just two months before the end of the Second World War, finding himself surrounded by the detritus of conflict's unfathomable loss. During years of sustained allied bombing, the inhabitants of the small towns in the Black Forest where Kiefer grew up had fled to the natural shelter of the surrounding wooded areas as their homes were reduced to rubble. And so, deprived of conventional toys, a boyish Kiefer would collect the debris from his neighborhood to construct small dwellings in which to play. Kiefer's early obsession with construction evidently informed his later artistic career where the parallels of creation and destruction as well as his exaltation of nature have become prolific leitmotifs. Die Ungeborenen then is a masterful survey of many of Kiefer’s most important, long-serving, and delicate themes. The turbulent landscape spreads out before the viewer as the resplendent debris of the artist’s history, iᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚmpregnated with the sublime and the promise of new beginnings.