καιρός remembered

Questi scritti, …

… quando verrano bruciati, daramo finalmente un po’di luce : These writings, when burned, will finally cast a little light. That’s the title Kiefer gave to his exhibition of paintings in the Palazzo Ducale in Venice in 2022, coinciding with the Biennale of that year. It’s a line taken from a text by the Venetian philosopher Andrea Emo.

Books can shed light in the darkness, but we generally don’t think of it the way Emo proposes and to which Kiefer’s title painting refers: remains of books in a typical ‘Kieferian’ landscape mutilated by scorching fire.

The charred little trunks standing in line evoke the desolate image of a military cemetery, with its endless parallel rows of uniform crosses or headstones, vanishing in the distance.

Photo of the week: Questi scritti, quando verranno brusciati, daranno finalmente un po’ di luce, detail of a painting in 7 parts, Anselm Kiefer, Sala della quarantia civil nova, Palazzo Ducale, Venice, Italy 2022