Artist: Anselm Kiefer
Date: 1989
Size: 120 x 390 cm
Museum: Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (Bilbao, Spain)
Technique: Photograph
Over the course of his career, Kiefer has depicted a number of real and mythological women, from Elizabeth of Austria to Brunhilde and Lilith. Berenice (1989) refers to the third-century BCE legend of Princess Berenice of Cyrene (present-day Libya). To ensure the safe return of her husband, Berenice sacrificed her long locks of hair and dedicated them to Venus; the locks subsequently disappeared from the temple where they had been laid and were said to have been transformed into a new constellation in the night sky. In this sculpture, Kiefer alludes to the myth by means of the partial wreckage of an airplane made of lead—a wing and a fuselage that emits a disturbing stream of human hair, suggesting spent fuel or toxic black fumes. Lead airplanes are a recurring motif in Kiefer
Artist |
|
|---|---|
Download |
