Ruins, for me, are the beginning. With the debris, you can construct new ideas. They are symbols of beginning. --Anselm Kiefer
His work is overwhelming. I was relieved the day I learned we had several of his pictures at the Broad in LA. To stand in front of an Anselm Kiefer is to be drawn into a vortex. I would hazard he is the greatest living artist in the world. As with Kiefer, ruins dominates Sebald's novels. It is hard as a person not born in the ruins of war to follow this obsession --but both artists are fascinated and obsessed.
For me, part of what is called the "psychogeographical" element of his writing, is the way Sebald walks the landscape and approaches the place from multiple points of view--and also over the long view-- flourishing into decay and new growth from the ruins? Like in Kiefer's Ages of the World, there is something apocalyptic about the writing... like standing back and being able to watch empires rise and falls and feeling the earth as it is trampled upon in the process.
But I think it is out of this that both artist's main obsession--that of memory--emerges.
How do we remember? Why are certain memories held dear--like "Next year in Jerusalem and the wondrous Western Wall-- hence, Sebald's obsession with Alec Garrard.
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