Edited by Honey Luard
Text by Rod Mengham and Kevin Power

Printing coordinated by Uwe Kraus, Italy
330 x 270 mm, hardback
100 pages, colour illustrations throughout
ISBN 0-9546501-4-X
Published by White Cube, 2005

This monograph on Anselm Kiefer features the artist’s ambitious two-part exhibition at White Cube Hoxton Square, London (June – August 2005) dedicated to the artist’s fascination with Velimir Khlebnikov. A quixotic writer of esoteric verse and the founder poet of Russian Futurism, Khlebnikov pursued formulae of absurd precision with obsessive rigour in attempts to control the movement of history. Invoking the paradoxes of time made evident in the poet’s work, Kiefer cast Khlebnikov’s ideas as a naval battle, incorporating model ships into the turbulent surfaces of his paintings.

As part of the exhibition, these paintings were housed in a purpose-built pavilion in Hoxton Square that recreated the dimensions and character of one of Kiefer's own studios in Barjac, Provence. Alongside illustrations of these paintings, the publication includes photography of complementary graphic and sculptural works – such as the immense cast concrete staircase Von den verlorenen gerührt, die der Glaube nicht trug, erwachen die Trommeln im Fluss (2005) – that offer insight into the artists’ challenging process.

An extended essay by novelist and critic Kevin Power provides a generous reading of the artist’s digressions across nation, myth and time. Reflecting on Kiefer’s ode to Khlebnikov, author and academic Rod Mengham considers the artist’s projection of speculation and anxiety upon specific historical episodes. The publication features Kiefer’s work with full-bleed details in vivid colour and several gatefolds, reproducing the scale and immensity of detail that distinguishes the artist’s ambitious work.

Rod Mengham is Professor of Modern English Literature in Modern English at the University of Cambridge and an Emeritus Fellow of Jesus College. He is the author and editor of books on 19th and 20th century fiction, 20th century poetry, violence and avant garde art, and language and cultural history. He is also editor of the Equipage series of poetry pamphlets, and joint editor and translator of Altered State: the New Polish Poetry.

Kevin Power is a novelist and critic. In 2021 his second novel, White City, was published by Scribner UK, and was shortlisted for the Eason Irish Novel of the Year, the Dalkey Book Festival Novel of the Year, and the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year awards. In 2022 he published a collection of criticism, The Written World: Essays and Reviews, with The Lilliput Press.