I read this article, and it’s interesting to hear of a painting who is inspired by such scientific topics.
It’s amazing that work so seemingly unordered, messy, crazy, intense, can be inspired by such clean, definitive theories.
“These advanced mathematicians are attempting to find a theory of everything,” he says, when we sit down for a chat in a back room of the gallery, “but each time they open a door, many other doors reveal themselves. It is all abstract mathematics, of course, so nothing is really yet proved. The more I read about it, the more I think they will never find the answer.”
for Kiefer string theory is a relatively new big idea around which all the old big ideas can coalesce.
^ An art practice can have the same structure?
[Kiefer’s work] Described in the show’s press release as an attempt “to articulate the known fundamental interactions of the universe and forms of matter”
^ Interactions with the universe, translated as forms and matter. Sounds similar to my work?
I need to see this show when I am in London!
He is a rationalist who is fascinated with the mysterious, an agnostic whose work is full of references to ancient belief systems,
^ I love this! Similar to me?
“These are such fantastic systems of thought because there is so much hard work put into proving that there is a big meaning to everything. But, of course, the reason that there is so much hard work is because there is no meaning.”
^ Rather dire.
Kiefer’s art seems like his response to these systems: art with no system at all. His work seems so chaotic and so evenly observed (there is no focal point, no ‘point’ of focus conceptually or visually to his work). Unlike the systems of belief that is interested in.
[Keifer says] “He, too, wanted to find this theory of the world.”
This exhibition at the White Cube in London sounds fantastic. Dealing with systems of thought and of course the works are landscapes. Exactly up my street!
“In a way, science is like mystery,” says Kiefer, “insofar as it does not make me sure of anything. I remember when I did my baccalaureate at high school my statement was, ‘Wisdom should make us sure; art should make us unsure.’ Smart, no?” So, as an artist, he is working in a state of perpetual uncertainty? “Yes, except for when I make a truly great painting, then I feel real.”
[Keifer says] “I have placed myself outside of the art market because it is all about speculation now. I don’t like it. I still know a few collectors who are not like this, but most of them are…”
[Kiefer says] “If you look at the cosmos, it is so huge and it has existed for so long. So, in that context, it is really devastating to think about that big question and realise that you have no idea why you are here. There really is no meaning. But, when I work, I give a meaning to what I do. That is enough.”
^ I like this.
Thinking about my blog and what I am writing:
I feel my blog is/ has always been a place that put stuff as an act of not forgoetting – to use Hans Ulrich Obrist’s words! I am copying and pasting quotes from the stuff I’m reading and I sometimes question why I am doing this. Why not just write my own notes? But I like adding snippets of what I am reading, because it’s like putting pins on writing. Once the pins are here on the blog I can then link them together and think about them as part of the whole ‘board’ of quotes and ideas.
Georgina Harris 