Die berühmten Orden der Nacht

Kiefer, A. (1996) Die berühmten Orden der Nacht. Artist’s book. Photographs and mixed media on paper and cardstock. 30 x 32 cm.

Kiefer’s artist book, Die berühmten Orden der Nacht (The renowned order of the night) relates to Ingeborg Bachmann’s poem, “An die Sonne” (To the sun). The first section consists of black and white photographs of sunflowers, coated with ink and white paint, obscured and revealed, and flecked with stars and traces of constellations. The second section of the book is heavy card, thickly coated in textured black ink and sprinkled with stars. The book explores the interlinked nature of the microcosm and macrocosm, stars found in the sunflowers and the sunflowers exploding into stars. When the book is shown, there is reportedly a discernible gasp when the page is finally turned from the photographs to the black painted skies, and the room changes from a backyard to the cosmos itself. [1]

My project explores how emotional and physical shifts in distance from landscape, can be represented and relayed. Kiefer’s book is relevant due to its exploration of a shifting proximity and distance. Of shifting the viewer’s perspective, moving through space, through time, of enacting change within the viewer. As with all Kiefer’s work this book speaks of alchemy and transformation, with the work not merely being about transformation but also acting as the site for transformation.

Die berühmten Orden der Nacht provides a more intimate view into Kiefer’s practice than his larger works. The ideas addressed are the core concepts of Kiefer’s monumental installations of heroic paintings taken into a more personal and precious book form – to hold, touch and interact with as the pages are turned. This more intimate artform echoes the terroir of my project which includes the restrictions of COVID-19, the isolation and a contracted and more private world.

Core to my project, Kiefer’s book engages with shifting tensions between representation and a more oblique translation of a landscape experience, through shifts in indices and materiality. The photograph is a physical index that aligns point to point with that which it represents (Pierce in Kraus 1977 p63). The photographs in this book are built up with indices of the artists interventions, and in this process the photograph shifts from being a window (Szarkowski in Daly, 2016, p73) to something with a more material presence.  


[1] Phillips & Reed, M. (2018) Artists and Their Books / Books and Their Artists. Yale University Press: New Haven

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