Unfrüchtbare Landschaften

"If we remember also that the books alter the ways that themes are treated in the paintings, and that they may reprise motifs already used in the pictures or give rise to new themes within the painted oeuvre, we can see that the books are a place where the thought, interconnections and over-determinations of Kiefer's public work are developed in a private register. They take photographs of installations that were originally created with a specific intention and develop them in different and sometimes unforeseeable directions. Their discursive or narrative nature is also a clue to the fact that the large pictures are not strictly speaking allegories, but what might be called dramatic representations of concepts. The books are Kiefer's private labyrinth, nestled at the heart of the greater labyrinth that is the totality of his work." (D. Arasse, Anselm Kiefer, New York, 2001, p. 62)