Project details
Category
ARTPLACES
VOGLIO VEDERE LE MIE MONTAGNEFÜR GIOVANNI SEGANTINI
NAPLES 12 FEBRUARY – 29 APRIL
The large paintings on display in the gallery portray a powerful, unsettling landscape. Kiefer employs writing as a ‘poetic word’ on the picture surface that moves freely – in this case the words Voglio vedere le mie montagne – für Giovanni Segantini return and chase each other – above the dark, earthy peaks, illuminated by crepuscular or nocturnal rays of light. But the writing, always done in his own hand, has an ambiguous function, providing the image with an occasionally unexpected interpretation, as in the case of Die Windsbraut (The Bride of the Wind) where a rocky windswept landscape is overlain by the title of a famous painting by Oskar Kokoschka which depicts the artist embracing his lover Alma Mahler as if they had been swept away by a storm. The idea for the work probably came to him following a trip to Naples in April 1913 when the couple were caught by surprise by a sudden, violent storm.