Anselm Kiefer

Author(s): Anselm Kiefer

Source: BOMB, No. 10 (Fall, 1984), p. 52
Published by: New Art Publications
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40425261 .
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storm there have been no noticeable
interruptions
from other diners. We have had the
long
room
pretty
much to ourselves
except
for the
annoying
solicitations of waiters.
Taking
such
pride
in their
profession, they
want to be noticed. And
why
not?
One tried to
push
his
zuppa anglaise
on us. No
thanks.
My enjoyment
of the
evening grows
as I
purpose-
ly postpone
that final moment of
triumph
when I
shall force him into an overt
response.
After the ex-
cellent
fruit,
one more item to
jack up
the bill. To
make the
evening
more mellow. A
digestivo,
the
tangy-sweet pale green liquor
di Certosa. Perfetto.
No doubt he would
prefer
a
pint
of bitter at this
point,
but we are
doing things my way.
I drink his off with
gusto.
At last the time is
ripe.
I call out "II conto . . . il
conto, per
favore.
"My
voice seems a trifle too loud in that
long
room with
its confections of
plaster
and table linen and silver
cruets for this and that.
The
stupid
little man sets down the round silver
tray
with the bill in front of
me, just
as I had ex-
pected
-
since I had done all the
ordering.
1 look
up
in
perfect feigned surprise
and meet his
eye, saying,
"Oh,
but the man in the
apple-green
tie will
pay."
"Ma
signore,
"he
whispers, "you
have ordered
two of
everything. However,
no other
person
has
been with
you
all
evening.
It is
you
who are wear-
ing
a
green
tie."
Anselm
Kiefer, Innenraum, 1981, Oil, paper,
canvas 113 x 122".
Courtesy Mary Boone
Gallery
deepening
shadbws. Mon frre . . . with that
crip-
pled
face
smiling perpetually.
Let us
walk, then,
in-
to that shadowed
place
under the
eternally
crumbl-
ing
arches. I do so like these ruined
buildings,
overgrown, crumbled,
semi-deserted
yet
still
somehow
functioning. They
remind me
increasing-
ly
of
something
familiar that is
necessary
for me to
figure
out.
Physical
forms of
my
own uninhabited
abandoned life. Chiuso
per
ristauro. Molto
pericoloso.
The
lighting
in the Ristorante Bixio is
dim,
ab-
sorbed
by
the
cream-pink plaster
walls. I make cer-
tain that we are seated so that he is
opposite
the
pierglass.
The
long
windows are dull
grey,
darken-
ed
by
a
long-awaited
sudden thunderstorm. I am
situated at his
left,
to avoid the
necessity
of con-
stant
eye-contact
and to afford the
opportunity
of
sidewise
glances
as often and as
subtly
as I wish in-
to the
glass
which
gives
a full frontal
image
of him
without his
noticing my gaze.
His mobile face un-
dulates on the surface of the mirror.
We are seated in the
long dining room,
rec-
tangular, high-ceilinged,
the first
partakers
of the
evening.
Due to the
largeness
of the
space
and the
dimness of the
light
it is difficult to
see,
to focus.
On
inspection, every
form seems to hold a
mystery
of
being,
of
being
half-there and
half-becoming
or
fading away
from the
eye's
fixation. What is it that
gives
the sensation of
familiarity?
Across the broad
boulevard now obscured
by
sheets of
grey
rain sits
the Castello
Visconteo,
self-absorbed and unmind-
ful of its
present vulnerability.
Time has dried
up
its moat that no rainstorm can
fill;
the four-lane
boulevard now traces the foundations of its once-
protective
wall. Leonardo
stayed there, during
his
work on the
Duomo,
as he did in
Vigevano
and in
the Castello
Sforza,
when he made his erratic visits
to della Grazie to
paint
his Last
Supper,
when not
tying golden
knots and
intertwining
branches in
the Sala di
Asse, making
nature's forms so other-
worldly
in that bastion of civilization. For his
patrons,
"II Moro" and Bea
d'Est, they
loved
nature's
fruits,
as did he.
Perhaps
it is the break in the
weather,
or
my
new-found sense of
mastery.
At
any rate, my ap-
petite
is excellent.
He, however,
has
toyed
with his
food all
evening;
the
disapproving
waiters remove
plate
after
plate
of his cold food. I could have eaten
his
portion
as
well,
and would have
except
for
my
innate sense of decorum. Per
dolce,
I order bowls
of
large ripe
mulberries smothered in cream. And
continue to discourse on what I have learned of
Leonardo,
his
generous patrons,
his
pretty pupils,
his varied talents and
interests,
his
many magnifi-
cent
works,
unfinished for the most
part yet perfect
in their
mystery
of
half-being.
His
bicycle,
even.
And his dreams of
flight.
The
evening grows
late
and
my partner
remains sullen.
Perhaps
due to the
52
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