Anselm Kiefer

Anselm Kiefer's Die Argonauten series was inspired by a casual dinner with friends. At the end of a meal, the artist noted the table's resemblance to a battlefield, and this quickly led him to delve into the Greek myth of Jason and the Argonauts. Despite the unlikely informality of the original prompt, Kiefer's choice to reinterpret the hero Jason's quest for the golden fleece continues central motifs in his work of violence, chauvinism and systems of power--derived, as ever, from the artist's assiduous study of poetry, mythology and cultural history. The project evolved into an installation composed of various totemic objects and weathered remnants, left over, so it appears, from Jason's quest. The third publication in Ivory Press' Liber artis series, Anselm Kiefer: Die Argonauten reproduces this ambitious series for the first time, along with a text by the artist.