AnselmKiefer
Kiefer is one of my favorite artists who has a great influence on me. I remember that in 2017, there was an exhibition of Kiefer in the Art Museum of the Central Academy of Fine Arts. At that time, I was shocked when I first saw his works. . Large-scale paintings and installations, the rich use of materials and strong expressiveness in his work(As shown in figure 1) impressed me. At first I didn't understand his work very well, then I started to read books and biographies about him and slowly began to understand him and his work, and then I started to think about the deeper meaning of Kiefer's work. Key words can be summarized about his works: history, philosophy, war, beliefs, ruins, materials and so on.
Figure 1, Anselm kiefer, Osiris and Isis,1985-1987
Figure 2, Anselm kiefer, Black Flakes, 2006
His painting is like a poem, the subject is obscure and tragic , and it implies a sense of history full of pain and recourse.(As shown in figure 2) What attracted me at first was the visual impact, scale, and use of various materials of his works, but ultimately I was struck by the higher level of meaning behind his work, which I hope I can express through my work, and I think this is important. I remember that in my previous works, I tried to learn from Kiefer's creative method and used some comprehensive materials to create(As shown in Figure 3,4). I even thought about creating works on the same scale as his, but then I thought, this is not very meaningful. I should create something that belongs to me, the things around me and about my era, after all, I am not in his era, and the theme and content of creation are different. What I should learn should be his attitude towards his works and his deep thinking and research on creation, rather than the superficial form. The form is not important, but the thought and content.
Figure 3, Wei Huang, Dead Flowers, 2021
Figure 4, Anselm kiefer, Margarete, 1981
I once looked at his documented photographs of ruins and barren landscapes（As shown in the link in reference), and then he used his painting language to convert them to the canvas. It turns out that his works have restored many real scenes, and almost every painting of his can be found. Later on I became more firmly aware of the fact that art is derived from the real world, even if the early paintings depict religious themes and depict heaven and hell, they all have a realistic basis. Then to the later Surrealism（ Breton，1924）, it is also based on reality. This makes me stick to my view of art more firmly. Art is a reflection of reality. Therefore, my creation is based on reality, depicting reality, and showing the mysterious side of art behind reality. Going back to Kiefer, his works are a huge system, and in the same way, his works are all about the historical reality of World War II. Just like writers and poets, they use the language of words to describe reality, while artists express reality through the language of art.
Reference
Kiefer, A. (2006) Black Flakes [Mixed Media]. Available at: http://www.hwart.cn/m/column/?newsid=5012(Accessed: 27 August 2018).
Kiefer, A. (1985-1987) Osiris and Isis [Mixed Media]. Available at: http://www.hwart.cn/m/column/?newsid=5012(Accessed: 27 August 2018).
Kiefer, A. (1981) Margarete [Mixed Media]. Available at: https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/great-works/margarete-1981-by-anselm-kiefer-saatchi-collection-970630.html (Accessed: 24 October 2018).
New Media Republic (no date) Compression. Available at: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/w7vdgCkHV3tJ29c1wA6uCA(Accessed: 05 Oct. 2021).
Breton, A. (2020) Manifestes du surréalisme（Chinese Translation）.Beijing: Beijing United Publishing Company.