{"id":17067,"date":"2026-01-26T08:09:51","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T07:09:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.marsilioarte.it\/?post_type=magazine&#038;p=17067"},"modified":"2026-01-26T08:09:51","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T07:09:51","slug":"anselm-kiefer-massimo-recalcati-book","status":"publish","type":"magazine","link":"https:\/\/www.marsilioarte.it\/en\/magazine\/anselm-kiefer-massimo-recalcati-book\/","title":{"rendered":"Alchemy according to Anselm Kiefer in Massimo Recalcati\u2019s new book"},"content":{"rendered":"It is a well-known fact that alchemy is a fundamental reference point in Kiefer\u2019s understanding of the process of artistic creation. It is no coincidence then, that Massimo Cacciari once defined his work as an \u00abalchemical <em>poiesis<\/em>\u00bb, capable of [&#8230;] making a ruin sacred, the stump a \u00abholy seed\u00bb, the end a new beginning. Kiefer touched on this in particular in his lectures at the Coll\u00e8ge de France. What interests him most is the analogy between alchemy as a process of transformation and artistic creation. How can a poor, humble, dark metal be refined to the point of becoming silver and gold?<br \/>\r\n<br \/>\r\nCanonically, the alchemical process follows a movement that begins with lead, passes through silver, and reaches the precious lustre of gold. This process can be read in a teleological sense, that is, as a movement that gradually ascends from the lowest planes to the highest, or, as I believe Kiefer\u2019s metaphysics of what\u2019s left pushes us to do, like a redemption of waste, like <em>taking the lowest point as the highest point<\/em>. This is also the message of the prophet Isaiah: it is the stump that remains \u2012 an indelible sign of destruction \u2012that must become a \u201choly seed\u201d. The same thing happens in the evangelical miracle of the wedding at Cana, as recounted by the evangelist John: it is not the sublime wine that replaces the putrid water, but the putrid water \u2012 the water contained in the wineskins used in the ritual of purifying the hands of the wedding guests \u2012 that is already in itself sublime wine.<br \/>\r\n<h2>ANSELM KIEFER AND THE ALCHEMY<\/h2><br \/>\r\nIn this sense, Kiefer too can affirm (referring precisely to the process of alchemical transformation) that the transformation \u00abis already present in the thing\u00bb. Therefore, no authentic transformation can be considered a mere substitution. The spoilt matter, the debris, the remainder, the lead are not simply replaced by gold because gold is already wholly in the spoilt matter, in the debris, in the remainder, in the lead, and the light of gold is already entirely in the lead because shadow is not the opposite of light, but rather, as Parmiggiani said, it is its very blood.<br \/>\r\n<br \/>\r\nWe should therefore carefully distinguish the dimension of the remainder from the rigidly melancholic dimension of waste or refuse. That is the feeling Peter Handke came away with from his visit to Barjac: the remains were never understood as waste, because \u00abeverything that remained was not recycled; it was preserved and set aside as something of value. In the greenhouse, so large and rich, there was not a single rotten vegetable or dried fruit\u00bb. This means that the remainder cannot be understood as refuse or simple waste. The alchemical process of transformation does not imply a substitution of materials but rather a change of perspective and position. If gold is already present in lead, if light is already present in shadow, the remainder is not mere waste or refuse, but, as Isaiah would say, a \u00abholy seed\u00bb. Lead is not simply at the beginning of the process, destined to later become gold, but <em>is already gold<\/em>. This means that matter, even that which seems furthest from the light, contains the spark of the spirit. It\u2019s that moment that Celan, cited by Kiefer, describes: \u00abthe stone adapts to blossom\u00bb.<br \/>\r\n<br \/>\r\nIn short, every time art performs its miracle, it transfigures the scar into poetry, giving a new form to catastrophe. That is what is manifested, for example, through works composed of lead books which, as such, are illegible. You cannot leaf through them, you cannot hold them in your hands, their contents cannot be known. Yet they retain them, preserve them precisely in their inaccessibility. It is the dialectic between being and nothingness, between creation and destruction that [\u2026] characterizes Kiefer\u2019s artistic work. For that reason, he can even argue that the greatness of his towers lies in their collapse. It is no coincidence that dissolution is a fundamental moment in the alchemical process, in which, without it, there could be no new form because, precisely, as Kiefer states, \u00abfirst there is dissolution and then coagulation\u00bb.<br \/>\r\n<br \/>\r\n<strong>Massimo Recalcati<\/strong><br \/>\r\n<br \/>\r\nThe text is taken from <em>Il seme santo. La poetica di Anselm Kiefer<\/em>, Marsilio Arte, Venezia 2026","protected":false},"featured_media":17053,"template":"","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categorie_magazine":[341],"class_list":["post-17067","magazine","type-magazine","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","categorie_magazine-books-from-marte"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Alchemy according to Anselm Kiefer in Massimo Recalcati\u2019s new book - Marsilio Arte<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"&quot;Il seme santo. 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