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Anselm Kiefer
Melancholia, 1990-1991

Artwork Info

Artwork title
Melancholia
Artist name
Anselm Kiefer
Date created
1990-1991
Classification
sculpture
Medium
lead, glass, steel, and ash
Dimensions
65 3/4 in. × 174 in. × 126 in. (167.01 cm × 441.96 cm × 320.04 cm)
Date acquired
1998
Credit
The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, fractional purchase
Copyright
© Anselm Kiefer
Permanent URL
https://www.sfmoma.org/artwork/98.309
Artwork status
On view on floor 6 as part of German Art After 1960

Surrounded by his paintings in SFMOMA’s galleries, German artist Anselm Kiefer describes the challenges and significance of exploring the past in his work. He highlights the subjective, emotional nature of both history and art.

Audio Stories

Why sculpt a jet plane in lead?

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transcripts

SFX: A jet fighter whines through the sky.  

 

NARRATOR:  

Airplanes hold the promise of flight. But not this one. It was made by Anselm Kiefer. He grew up in Germany just after World War II. Works like this were made out of his struggle to reconcile himself to his countrys troubled past. Real planes are engineered from light materials, but Kiefer made this jet bomber out of one of the heaviest elements he could find — lead.  

 

SFX: The war soundscape becomes slow & surreal.  

 

NARRATOR:  

Do you see that glass shape resting on the left wing there? Its a crystal polyhedron, filled with ash. The shape alludes to the ancient practice of alchemy — whose central focus was transformation. Specifically, transforming lead into gold.  

 

KIEFER 

Lead is the prima materia, that’s from — the alchemists, say, wanted to produce gold. So the first step was lead; and the next, silver; and the next, gold. So the lead is a spiritual material.  

 

NARRATOR:  

And not only that, lead is full of contradictions. Its toxic, but it can also shield from radiation. Its heavy and dense, but also malleable enough to shape into a sculpture. So maybe Kiefers plane begs a question: Can we find redemption in even the basest elements – or for that matter, the darkest of histories 

 

SFX: Soundscape fades  

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Audio Description

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transcripts

NARRATOR: 

Melancholia is a long, low sculpture of a grounded, jet bomber. Anselm Kiefer made it between 1990 and 1991 out of thin sheets of lead — a material that’s known to be toxic. Its tail rises to 5 ½ feet tall, but the rest sits low to the ground — about knee height. It measures 10 ½ feet long from the nose of the plane to the tail, with a wing span of 14 ½ feet wide.  

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Other Works by Anselm Kiefer

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