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Lot Essay
‘Ferns are very important. The first trees were ferns. They are primal. Charcoal and oil are made out of ferns that existed at the beginning of life. There are many stories and folktales about plants having memories. If this is true, ferns could tell us a great deal about our beginnings. Like forests, ferns may contain secret knowledge. But they are complex in relation to Christian symbols of light. They grow in the shade. On the evening of Johannisnacht, the devil goes out into the fields and spreads fern seeds. This creates a certain chaos. Ferns remind us that we also need the darkness’
(A. Kiefer, quoted in Anselm Kiefer: Heaven and Earth, exh. cat., Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas, 2007, p. 90).
Comprising dried ferns, acrylic and gesso on top of a sheet of lead, Anselm Kiefer’s Johannis, revisits a subject that dominated his output of the 1980s. By placing the textural ferns on a dark painted background, referencing the night sky, Kiefer presents them as a natural symbol of the Divinity which created life. The title, Johannis or Midsummer, refers to the night before the summer solstice. In Germany, this night is celebrated with rituals influenced by both pagan and Christian traditions; thousands of five meter high straw wheels are built, set aflame on the hilltops and let roll into the valley. The summer solstice celebrations also coincide with the celebration of Saint John the Baptist’s birth and as such Johannis is a simultaneous allusion to both celebrations. Traditionally on midsummer night, the seeds of ferns are collected for use in rituals, as believed to contain magical qualities to guide its bearer to discover treasures and attain good fortune. Kiefer describes the significance in using ferns in Johannis: ‘Ferns are very important. The first trees were ferns. They are primal. Charcoal and oil are made out of ferns that existed at the beginning of life. There are many stories and folktales about plants having memories. If this is true, ferns could tell us a great deal about our beginnings. Like forests, ferns may contain secret knowledge. But they are complex in relation to Christian symbols of light. They grow in the shade. On the evening of Johannisnacht, the devil goes out into the fields and spreads fern seeds. This creates a certain chaos. Ferns remind us that we also need the darkness’ (A. Kiefer, quoted in Anselm Kiefer: Heaven and Earth, exh. cat., Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas, 2007, p. 90).
Kiefer was very much influenced by Joseph Beuys and Arte Povera in their use of unlikely materials, and has sought to attach additional symbolic value to his media. Johannis’ vast scale and complexity gives it a forceful presence, recalling the outsize proportions of the Abstract Expressionism, while the physical fragility of materials conveys the artist’s deep connection with the history and fate of Germany, invoking the decimated terrain of the post-World War II landscape. Treating a large sheet of lead as an abstract pictorial surface, he also highlights the material’s protective capacity. As the artist explains, ‘it is in flux. It’s changeable […] Lead has always been a material for ideas. In alchemy, this metal stood on the lowest rung of the process of extracting gold. On the one hand, lead was bluntly heavy and connected to Saturn, the hideous man – and on the other hand it contains silver and was also already the proof of the other spiritual level’ (A. Kiefer, BBC interview, November 2014). Kiefer has always identified himself as an alchemist as much as an artist, and Johannis brilliantly exemplifies his strong belief in art’s power as a mediator of painful national tragedies and a passage towards an enlightened future. Poignant and poetic, the work carries with it the distant promise of rebirth, offering an image of the renewal and salvation.
(A. Kiefer, quoted in Anselm Kiefer: Heaven and Earth, exh. cat., Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas, 2007, p. 90).
Comprising dried ferns, acrylic and gesso on top of a sheet of lead, Anselm Kiefer’s Johannis, revisits a subject that dominated his output of the 1980s. By placing the textural ferns on a dark painted background, referencing the night sky, Kiefer presents them as a natural symbol of the Divinity which created life. The title, Johannis or Midsummer, refers to the night before the summer solstice. In Germany, this night is celebrated with rituals influenced by both pagan and Christian traditions; thousands of five meter high straw wheels are built, set aflame on the hilltops and let roll into the valley. The summer solstice celebrations also coincide with the celebration of Saint John the Baptist’s birth and as such Johannis is a simultaneous allusion to both celebrations. Traditionally on midsummer night, the seeds of ferns are collected for use in rituals, as believed to contain magical qualities to guide its bearer to discover treasures and attain good fortune. Kiefer describes the significance in using ferns in Johannis: ‘Ferns are very important. The first trees were ferns. They are primal. Charcoal and oil are made out of ferns that existed at the beginning of life. There are many stories and folktales about plants having memories. If this is true, ferns could tell us a great deal about our beginnings. Like forests, ferns may contain secret knowledge. But they are complex in relation to Christian symbols of light. They grow in the shade. On the evening of Johannisnacht, the devil goes out into the fields and spreads fern seeds. This creates a certain chaos. Ferns remind us that we also need the darkness’ (A. Kiefer, quoted in Anselm Kiefer: Heaven and Earth, exh. cat., Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas, 2007, p. 90).
Kiefer was very much influenced by Joseph Beuys and Arte Povera in their use of unlikely materials, and has sought to attach additional symbolic value to his media. Johannis’ vast scale and complexity gives it a forceful presence, recalling the outsize proportions of the Abstract Expressionism, while the physical fragility of materials conveys the artist’s deep connection with the history and fate of Germany, invoking the decimated terrain of the post-World War II landscape. Treating a large sheet of lead as an abstract pictorial surface, he also highlights the material’s protective capacity. As the artist explains, ‘it is in flux. It’s changeable […] Lead has always been a material for ideas. In alchemy, this metal stood on the lowest rung of the process of extracting gold. On the one hand, lead was bluntly heavy and connected to Saturn, the hideous man – and on the other hand it contains silver and was also already the proof of the other spiritual level’ (A. Kiefer, BBC interview, November 2014). Kiefer has always identified himself as an alchemist as much as an artist, and Johannis brilliantly exemplifies his strong belief in art’s power as a mediator of painful national tragedies and a passage towards an enlightened future. Poignant and poetic, the work carries with it the distant promise of rebirth, offering an image of the renewal and salvation.