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Fire on the Earth: Anselm Kiefer and the Postmodern World (Arts and Their Philosophies)
Fire on the Earth Anselm Kiefer and the Postmodern World - Arts and Their Philosophies Author:John Gilmour Born in 1945, the German painter Anselm Kiefer "represents the concerns and insecurities of postwar European intellectuals, confronted by a questionable past and a future so threatening that it tends to create despair." In this philosophical case study of Kiefers work, John C. Gilmour addresses a crisis that is common to twentieth-century ... more »art and aesthetic theory: the loss of confidence in the ideals and world view inherited from the Enlightenment. Modernisms historical moment has passed, he claims, and Kiefers artwhich was the subject of a recent national exhibitionreveals the contours of an emerging postmodern vision. Considering the writings of Jameson, Foucault, Baudrillard, Lyotard, and Nietzsche, among others, Gilmour shows how Kiefers use of literary, mythological, and other cultural texts parallels the intertextual approach common among postmodern theorists. At the same time, the artists cosmological questioning adds a dimension lacking among many of postmodernisms leading proponents. The author interprets Kiefers art as a site where distinctions between modern and postmodern senses of representation, history, cosmology, and nature become thematic. He addresses individual paintingsthe book includes forty-four illustrationsand gives the historical, biographical, art-critical, and philosophical setting for each piece.« less