Lilith is the name of a figure from Hebrew folklore to whom Kiefer referred in many of his works
of the 1980s and 1990s. Several different stories are attached to Lilith, but she has been
represented most commonly as the first wife of Adam who refused to join him in the Garden of
Eden and instead went to live on the edge of the Red Sea. Lilith has been depicted as a demon
and also as a siren-like figure who leads men into dangerous situations with her beauty and
especially her long, flowing hair. Kiefer has explained his choice of title with reference to Lilith’s
association with destruction, stating in 2011 that as he painted this work he ‘thought of … Lilith,
who lives in the abandoned ruins. And I asked myself: what does this city say to me? And I
thought of the end of the city, its dispersal into ashes, on the circular movement of all time’
(quoted in Müller 2011, accessed 2 January 2014). This idea of destruction is also evoked by
Kiefer’s violent reworking and burning of his canvases.
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/kiefer-lilith-t05742
Kiefer - Lilith
This horrific vision of urban sprawl was inspired by Kiefer’s visit to Sao Paulo in Brazil.
Tangled copper wiring signals the breakdown of communication. The city is engulfed
in an apocalyptic haze, which Kiefer created by spreading dust and earth across the
painting, then burning parts of its surface. According to Hebrew mythology, Lilith was
Adam’s first wife, a seductive and demonic airborne spirit. In Kiefer’s painting, Lilith
seems to bring destruction from the air upon Oscar Niemeyer’s modernist buildings.
Kiefer Lilith am Roten Meer (zoom) 1990
https://theartstack.com/artist/anselm-kiefer/lilith-am-roten-meer
This enormous canvas (2800mm x 4980mm) is covered in lead, clothes, steel wire and ash. Many of the clothes were infant and baby
size. This work is a reflection about the holocaust, and the lives that were lost. It is such a sad and all encompassing work to be in the same
room with.
I learnt recently, that Lilith is a Jewish mythological figure. Lilith becomes Adams first wife (in the bible, Isaiah 34;14) but she leaves him
because she refuses to obey him. She said that because they were made from the same earth, the clay that God made them from, then they
are equal. Adam did not agree, and neither did the angels.The angels said that she would be punished by having 100 of her children killed
every day. Because of her refusal to obey Adam, she became known as a demon and tragedies such as children dying, and poverty,
illness, were blamed on Lilith. Anselm Kiefer's 'Lilith am Roten Meer' can be translated to 'Lilith at the Red Sea' where hundreds of people
drowned in the Red Sea in Egypt. This is a very powerful and arresting work.
“Lilith … die das Bild der Dämonin in medialen Darstellungen im 20. und 21. Jahrhundert geprägt hat”
Das kann man wohl sagen. Neben Kubin (1931) nahm sich in den 1980er Jahren auch Anselm Kiefer des Lilith-Themas an, wie ein Ausschnitt
aus seinem monumentalen (3x5 Meter) Werk “Lilith am Roten Meer” zeigt. Die kleinen Röcke in dem aus Blei, Kleiderstoffen, Stahldraht,
Asche gefertigtem Opus symbolisieren nicht nur die (im Meer ertrinkenden?) Kinder Liliths, von denen Gott (?) täglich 100 als Strafe dafür
töten liess, weil sie Adam nicht gehorchen wollte, sondern auch die vielen verlorenen Leben im Holocaust. Ein Werk mit enormer
Aussagekraft. “Kunst ist schwierig” mahnte Kiefer “Sie dient nicht zur Unterhaltung” nicht NUR, wäre vielleicht hinzuzufügen...
https://derstandard.at/2000068596337/Von-der-Daemonin-zur-Femme-fatale-Lilith-in-der-Kunst#posting-1026200467
