Märkischer Sand

Painted in 1985, and acquired directly from the artist by the present owner, Anselm’s Kiefer’s Märkischer Sand is a sublime meditation on time and land. The delicate work is a jewel box of marine blue and greens which emerge from behind a rocky outcropping. Wege: märkischer Sand (1980), a painting on the same theme, is held in the collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Kiefer’s use of watercolour in the present work encourages an emotional intimacy not entirely available in the artist’s larger works. As he has said, ‘If you have a very big idea, a big theme, you need a small format’ and the seascape of Märkischer Sand convey a geological timescale even as Kiefer continues his protracted engagement with Germany’s more recent past (A. Kiefer, quoted in B. Cavaliere, Anslem Kiefer: Works on Paper in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, exh. cat., Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 1998 p. 53). Indeed, the work’s title refers to a well-known hiking and marching German song, and the unofficial anthem of the Brandenburg region; its lyrics extol the beauty of the country’s landscapes. For Kiefer, whose art has long contended with Germanic history and folk traditions, the song offers a means of exploring the themes of memory and collective identity. Through his work he seeks new beginnings.