Abstract
For Heidegger technology en-frames a world of manipulated objects and unleashes a one-dimensional subjectivity that blinds us to the essence of the object world. It is a distraction that promotes inauthentic living over confrontation with the finitude of our existence. Three themes tie Anselm Kiefer’s artistic commentary on technology to Heidegger’s philosophy. They are both interested in the essence of technology, Heidegger in its ontological aspects and Kiefer in its spiritual aspects. Both emphasize the ambiguity created by technology. Both point to a relation between earth and world. Kiefer’s art shows an earth and world relation that is fraught with peril, a relationship between earth and world where technology threatens, Being is in question, and no identity has been established between earth and world.
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Notes
Dreyfus, Hubert, Being-in-the- World: A Commentary on Heidegger’s Being and Time, Division I, Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 1990: 98.
Heidegger, Martin, The Question Concerning Technology, and Other Essays, New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1982.
Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology, 1982: 290.
Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology, 1982: 306.
Heidegger, Martin, “The Origin of the Work of Art,” in Basic Writings, edited by David Farrell Krell, New York: Harper Collins, 1993: 143.
As Meyer Schapiro (1968) pointed out, the pair of shoes most likely belonged to Van Gogh himself, not a peasant woman. See Schapiro, Theory and Philosophy of Art: Style, Artist, Society, New York, George Braziller, 1994. The Still Life as a Personal Object and; http://harpers.org/blog/2009/10/philosophers-rumble-over-van-goghs-shoes/
Heidegger, The Origin of the Work of Art, 1993: 159–160.
Cited in Biro, Matthew, Anselm Kiefer and the Philosophy of Martin Heidegger, London: Cambridge University Press, 2000: 7
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© 2014 Anthony Lack
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Lack, A. (2014). The Art of Anselm Kiefer through the Lens of Martin Heidegger on Technology, Art, and Truth. In: Martin Heidegger on Technology, Ecology, and the Arts. Palgrave Pivot, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137487452_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137487452_3
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