Out of the Darkness: Creating New Contexts of Meaning in Anselm Kiefer's Citation of Nazi History

Abstract

Anselm Kiefer (1945-) is a German artist who has seemingly attracted more attention than almost any other artist of his generation. Many of his largescale paintings address Germany’s Nazi past. While a large degree of literature already exists on Kiefer’s oeuvre, this thesis explores his photographic series Occupations (1969), a page from his book Heroic Symbols (1969), and paintings Ways of Worldly Wisdom (1978) and Nero Paints (1974). It is through an analysis of these specific images that I address the main concepts of performativity, citation, and allegory; arguing for the efficacy of Kiefer’s art and its intervention on the visual and semiotic infrastructure of the Nazi past.