ART AND MEMORY

2/11/2026

Recently I have been drawn back to the works of German artist Anselm Kiefer.

The first time I saw Anselm Kiefer’s work his soul came out of the painting and wrapped itself around my heart like an enormous hand - it did not squeeze - it spoke only of terror and the desire to soothe itself. It spoke only of a future it saw but could not make the world see it too because the world was moving in an/the illusion of dis-reality. His work tears my heart, rips it, and soothes it at the same time. Like running through a forest barefeet and crying out at the feel of the forest floor gourging into the flesh beneath my feet and at the same time being drowned, engulfed by the beauty of the greens and browns capped by the blues above.

 I found Kiefer in the 90’s and spent a long time standing in front of the work in a kind of frightening awe. I would return to the exhibit and sit and stare, leave and return.

No matter what country I traveled to, if there was an exhibition of his work or even some work in those museum’s collection, I would be drawn to it like a “bee to honey”. I was intrigued by the way he used memory. I was frightened by the way he used memory. I was terrified by the art statements he made of memory.

Suddenly I begin to realize, be reminded, that we cannot create art without memory. That art is about memory. I know I am not the first to realize this. There are lots of books about this I have even read many of them. Yet here it is like a flash as if it is new in my mind. As a matter of fact, I recall that memory is a topic I was heavily engrossed in during the 90-‘s. Our whole existence is built on memory. We use memory to do so much, write, move from one place to another, talk about our everyday lives even this writing is using memory.

What is my work filled with? Is it the same thing? The same --- that I sense from Kiefer? Do we carry around our childhood forever? Is the stamping of these imageries so profound that the mark is indelible.

So much of my own art works are about memory.  All are experiences of memory whether mine or the experiences of memory I have been taught from birth - the experiences of memory that are handed down in tribal and historical collections from our cultures to even the smallest incidents of life within our daily family interactions. We are constantly making experiences of memory. We cannot exist without our experiences of memory. We use them to rule our world.

My art is enveloped by my experiences of memory.  Experiences that are part of my collective unconscious that I have resurrected through manipulation of the memories of my ancestors, those long pasts, and the more recent ones whose psyche I have prodded and pried, blasting open mines of hidden gems and connecting them to the memory given from birth. Reading history I have pieced together these artifacts- because they are artifacts – to be able to write a complete history of myself, before I came into a fleshy being and while I have been here exposed as a being.in this lifetime. I was fortunate to be educated at a time when memory, psychoanalysis, future travel became common. And although I have read everything, I could get my hands on, I knew but still did not make the connection of all this to my own art, my own history and my own memory until now returning to Anselm Kiefer.  Kiefer was born in 1944. I was born in 1944.  We are of the same generation of earth walkers. I have been doing the same thing that Kiefer has been doing for my entire art career, so why did it not hit me to see it in the same way.  This is not a new topic – ha ha ha – If I search on the internet for writings about art and memory I will find “millions”.  Yet here I am just making the jump to hyperspace in an old 1953 Chevrolet singing the same tune that Dinah Shaw sang every night my father grouped us around the tv to watch the Dinah Shaw show. I have just locked myself into a memory coffin from which…….

My work over the years has been the work of longing.  “Memory and longing”. How can one long for the pain of the past?  How can one long for the happiness of the past? What does that say about the “now” in which I am living. What will be in my “will” to pass on to the future generations of my line. I am reminded of Pandora’s box.  Was that also a memory thing? Were the things that came out of Pandora’s box, memories of past horrors of the God’s.  I believe the Gods actually lived. I do not believe in myth.  For me what we call myth is just memory that has been passed down for so long that each time it has been recounted it has taken on a new life, a new creative coat.

So, I have been told to write about my work.  How do I write about my work when it is a memory in my head that has already been purged? The new generations are too busy making their own memories to be concerned about grandma’s stories. My Pandora’s box is mine.  How and who can I share it with and why is it necessary to share it?

My art is about the last 100 years of memory brought to this hemisphere by slaves, slavers, and those who escaped from their own hell. As my memory ages, all this seeps out and lying on the wind becomes just another part of the dust of the universe. I am and always will be the dust of the universe.

P.S For those of you who dont know, Anselm Kiefer is a German artist whose works exemplify the pain he experienced growing up in a city that had been bombed and in pieces. He speaks of using the pieces of the buildings to create his toys. His work represents the epiphany of contemporary arts, and is so connected to the times we are currently experiencing. He is worth looking into if you do not know of him.