Anselm Kiefer, a German artist born in 1945, was the student of Josef Beuys. Unlike his teacher Beuys who had been a victim of war and the first artist to face up to Hitlerism and the holocaust, Kiefer did not experience that period as he was a post-war artist. Kiefer lived at a time of constant political debate as to whether Germany should ignore the past or face it. The viewer of Kiefer’s works may invariably wonder what classifies Kiefer as a postmodern artist given the strong element of tradition that characterizes him. Kiefer, as we will see, quotes tradition and attributes it a whole new meaning.
Huyssen suggests that a way in which we can gain an insight into the sociopolitical climate in which Kiefer’s work developed is to relate Kiefer’s work to three West German cultural phenomena and the ways in which they portray the shadow of the haunted past on West German culture. Firstly, the praising of the international success of the new German cinema in the 1950s. Secondly, the formation of the Neoexpressionists from the 1960’s. Thirdly, the historians’ debate over the German National Identity. Below I am going to discuss the bearing of each of these phenomena on Kiefer’s work.
The German cinema was driven by questions of German identity –on the personal, political, cultural and sexual levels. These questions seemed to carry the underlying acknowledgment that the fascist past and postwar democratic present are inescapably chained together. Moreover, Huyssen draws parallels between Kiefer’s treatment of fascist imagery and Syberberg’s major films: both Kiefer and Syberberg were accused of sympathizing with fascism.
Secondly the instant stardom of a group of Berlin painters who had been painting for two decad...
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Perhaps one of the most haunting and compelling parts of Sanders-Brahms’ film Germany Pale Mother (1979) is the nearly twenty minute long telling of The Robber Bridegroom. The structual purpose of the sequence is a bridge between the marriage of Lene and Hans, who battles at the war’s front, and the decline of the marriage during the post-war period. Symbolically the fairy tale, called the “mad monstrosity in the middle of the film,” by Sanders Brahms (Kaes, 149), offers a diagetic forum for with which to deal with the crimes of Nazi Germany, as well a internally fictional parallel of Lene’s marriage.
In the Early years of film one can easily say that Germany lead the way in experimentation, with such striking examples as Dr. Caligari, Nosferatu and Dr. Mabuse the Gambler. How when looking at two of these film, Nosferatu and Dr Mabuse the Gambler one can find a similar theme that run throughout. This theme is that of Weimar’s insecurity about outsiders and otherness different cultures. While both films have different stories at their very simplest both films see someone come into the idyllic lives of the protagonist not only wrecking their lives but the lives of ordinary people as well. It’s worth noting that borth Nosferatu and Dr. Mabuse the Gambler were filmed in the turbulent early 20’s of the Weimar period where Germany was still dealing with the aftermath of the war and outside powers such as France encroaching on German territory and at the same time political unrest had reached its high. With all these changes going on it easy to see why Germany might have felt that outsider were at work trying to remold modern Germany. This is why in these turbulent early years befor the Weimar Golden age we see such strong use of the other/outsider as a stand in for events taken place in Germany
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The “German” nation, before it even became known as Germany, had undergone a period of transition from its inherited culture as a result of the French invasion and the Napoleonic wars. There was a sense that the German cultur...
...“Some Common Themes and Ideas within the Field of Postmodern Thought: A handout for HIS 389,” last modified May 13,2013,
If modernism and postmodernism are arguably two most distinguishing movements that dominated the 20th century Western art, they are certainly most exceptional styles that dominated the global architecture during this period. While modernism sought to capture the images and sensibilities of the age, going beyond simple representation of the present and involving the artist’s critical examination of the principles of art itself, postmodernism developed as a reaction against modernist formalism, seen as elitist. “Far more encompassing and accepting than the more rigid boundaries of modernist practice, postmodernism has offered something for everyone by accommodating wide range of styles, subjects, and formats” (Kleiner 810).