Galleria Lorcan O'Neill, Rome

Acquire🃏d from the above by the preset owner in 2010

Colour: The colour in the catalogue illustration is fairly accurate, although the overall tonality is lighter, brighter and more blue in the original. Condition: This work is in very good condition. The work is attached verso to the backing board in all four corners. There are aritst's pinholes in all four corners. There is some undulation, creases and small tears to the edges of paper throughout, which are inherent to the artist's choice of medium and working process.No restoration is apparent when examined under ultra-violet light.
"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. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Amongst the lead weighed down by mythology or the thick almost engulfing impasto of his paintings; between the ships of war, strewn propeller blades, barbed wire and ripped nightclothes, one can easily forget that Kiefer started as a photographer. In his earliest body of work, the Occupations, Kiefer conducted a world tour of the Nazi salute - often on grand staircases at recognised sites of civilisation. The photograph as a superficial signifier of historical evidence is a fundamental conceptual pillar for an artist who continually questions the notions of history and myth. While they has never appeared so stark as in those early works, photographs weave their way through Kiefer’s output, often submerged beneath layers of paint. Almost always architectural in nature, they function as theatre props, set designs in front of which Kiefer orchestrates his mythological narratives.

In H2O, Kiefer uses photographs of staircases he has cast at his 200 acre studio in Barjac. Following on from a series of gouaches and photo collages of staircases started in 2003, the work is at times impregnable for its diverse array of mythological connections. Stairs canvased in watery paint lead nowhere. A symbol of melancholia, drawn from Albrecht Dürer’s iconic eponymous etching, lies next to the work’s mysterious title, H2O. Devoid of people, this is a theatre set for the damned. We, the viewer, are unsure as to whether we have arrived at Act 1 or the Final Act yet an unmistakable atmosphere of reckoning prevails. Kiefer’s interest in architectural forms as a means to memorialise is unmistakable, as Mark Rosenthal notes, "melancholy and elegy are Kiefer's principal leitmotifs and inform an understanding of his work… In particular, architectural monuments play a powerful role in his pictorial world” (Mark Rosenthal cited in: Exh. Cat., Basel, Fondation Beyeler, Anselm Kiefer: The Seven Heavenly Palaces 1973 - 2001, 2002, p. 51).

The central theme to the present work is the staircase, a symbol Kiefer has returned to time and again throughout his remarkable career. The staircase builds on a broad range of both intertwined and entirely disparate connections, from Corbusier to Merkabah mysticism and back to the r🎉enowned Nazi architect Albert Speer. In 1966, Kiefer lived in a cell for three weeks in the Dominican monastery of La Tourette, designed by Corbusier between 1955 and 1960. Here, the brutality of Corbusier’s modernist vision was not lost on Kiefer. Rendered in concrete, Corbusier’s staircases would be seen forty years later littered across the landscape of Barjac. The antagonistic relationship between modernism and religion would have fascinated Kiefer, especially Corbusier’s staircases as a metaphor for a Christian’s ascension to heaven.

Kiefer has not limited himself to a strict Christian interpretation of the staircase. Marauding across mythologies and cultures as only Kiefer does, the staircases reappeared in his 2002 Gagosian show in New York. This time they referred to the subject of Merkaba and the Kabbalist tradition of the afterlife. In this tradition, the staircase act as ladders between the seven heavenly palaces that represent steps in the attainment of divine ♌spirituality. Metaphorically, the staircase as a bridge between heaven and earth, between the past and present, is given added weight when we consider the title of the work, ‘H2O’. Kiefer’s use of watery thin paint, splashed and sprayed over the surface of the photographs, creates the atmosphere of the sea. As much as the staircase is a pathway to heaven, does Kiefer’s reference to H2O situate these works at the opposite end of the spectrum: creation? Do these staircases speak to the creationist narrative of land forged from the sea? In this are they stairways to civilisation?

Yet the staircases in the present work are altogether more neoclassical than modernist, more real than religious. Heavy and monolithic, the architectural reference points oscillate between the Greco-Roman tradition and the re-imagination of it by the Nazi’s principle architect, Albert Speer. It is in this space, between mythology and the material that Kiefer assumes his role as artistic conductor, playing with our referential system, forcing us to question our perception of history in order to understand it more as a construct and less as an authoritative narrative. When asked about his interest in staircases, Kiefer remarked “it’s all about finding symbols that move in both directions” (Anselm Kiefer cited in: Exh. Cat., Fort Worth, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (and travelling), Heaven and Earth, 2006, p. 124).