Art Blart and Anselm Kiefer and The Norns

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Urd Werdande Skuld (The Norns)  1983

Oil, shellac, emulsion and fibre on canvas
support: 4205 x 2805 x 60 mm
painting

ARTIST ROOMS Acquired jointly with the National Galleries of Scotland through The d'Offay Donation with assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Art Fund 2008

AR00036

Between 1980 and 1983, Kiefer made paintings that revisited images of Hitler’s monumental architecture. Using old photographs and architectural plans, Kiefer transformed symbols of Nazi authority into derelict building-sites. In this work, the vaulted structure contains the unseen presence of the Norns, the three figures of fate in Germanic mythology, named Past, Present and Future. Their names are scratched into the ceiling, while below a glowing fire points to salvation and regeneration. Drawing on the artist’s fascination with Norse folklore and Wagnerian motifs, the work reflects his attempts to reconcile his country’s recent history through the myths of Germanic legend.

 (From the online caption April 2009)

Description from here 

I subscribe to a blog entitled Art Blart. That is where this image of The Norns has come from - and there are other images there, too, by the same painted. The artist is Anselm Kiefer.  I find his work striking and meditative.  More images of his work can be found here, and here.

  

Anselm Kiefer: Heaven And Earth 

 

Anselm Kiefer 

 

Anselm Kiefer/Paul Celan: Myth, Mourning and Memory 

 

Anselm Kiefer: Maria Walks amid the Thorn 

 

Anselm Kiefer: Sculpture & Painting 

Remembering Burke and Wills

To-day a memorial plaque will be officially launched to commemorate the departure, 150 years ago, of Robert O'Hara Burke and William John Wills on a journey of exploration.  The Burke and Wills saga is well embedded in the Australian consciousness - not least because it was an unmitigated disaster and an example of how not to conduct exploration in Australia.

I live in Melbourne and Burke and Wills are big here.  I sort of knew that before I came to live here.  However, I am frequently confronted by the mass adulation of the B&W pre-expedition and their memorialisation post-disaster.  There are statues here and there but I was really gobsmacked by a very, very large artwork at the State Library of Victoria which portrayed the adulation of the crowds of Melbourne as they farewelled these yet to be heroic men.

I hate to be a party-pooper but I am a North Australian living in exile in Melbourne and where I come from Burke and Wills are regarded as prize dills.  We don't think they knew very much.  We don't think they needed to perish.  We think they were amazingly arrogant and ignorant.  While they were doing a perish not too far away Aboriginal groups were thriving.

If any memorials are being built to Burke and Wills to-day they should be done in the context of the ignorance and arrogance of the post-1788 white settlers.

The State Library of Victoria is entering into the commemorations with an ongoing exhibition which began in  May and will run through to October this year under the title of Burke and Wills: Terra Incognita.  To-morrow and Friday there are workshops related to the exhibition from the Curator's viewpoint. Gerard Hayes will discuss items on display including contemporary portraits of Burke and Wills, their last notes and firearms used on the expedition.  Bookings for the workshops are essential.

And for everything you ever wanted to know on the B&W 150th, please go here.

Working Class Man and the Packers

I don't believe that Michael Mucci is out to win the Archibald Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales with his portrait of Scott Cam titled Working Class Man. I think his goal was specifically to win the Packing Room Prize. Painting Scott Cam, good or bad, would have had to be a shoe-in with the blokes in the Packing Room. But it is a wonderful painting which should have been irresistible to the packers. The packers (these are small 'p' packers - not capital 'P' Packers), who receive the portraits and install them in the gallery, vote for their choice of winner. Although the prize is said to be awarded by the staff, the gallery's storeman, Steve Peters, is the real power in the Packing Room Prize. Since 1991, when the first Packing room prize was given, Steve has held 51% of the vote. My guess is that in 2006, the vote would have been unanimous.