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The seen Heavenly Palaces
This installation owes its name to the seven heavenly palaces described in the ancient Sefer Hechalot (also known as the “Book of Palaces” and dating back to the 4th-5th century A.D.). This treatise tells us that he who wishes to ascend to the merkaba (or loréd), must pass through the Seven Heavens in order to come before God on his throne, and must therefore proceed through the Seven Celestial Rooms/Palaces, using magical hymns, words and symbols to elude the surveillance of the angels who keep watch over them. In order to express this symbolic path of spiritual initiation, inside HangarBicocca Anselm Kiefer has erected seven towers, weighing around 90 tonnes, built by assembling together 85 load-bearing corner supports in reinforced concrete weighing 6 tonnes each, created on the spot in the exhibition space using red and blue shipping containers as formworks, 42 slabs weighing 2.5 tonnes each and irregularly bored in the centre to create an open channel running right through each tower, 160 books in three different formats and 90 lead wedges. The elements that make up the constructions, from the reinforced concrete corner supports to the lead wedges and books, are simply positioned on top of one another, progressively layered to give the towers an air reminiscent of a Babel-like visual imbalance yet at the same time of a “miraculous” static equilibrium.
Each “palace” is topped by structural crowning elements and decorative elements that imbue them with a distinctive character that varies according to the subject and the title of each particular tower.
1 Sefiroth The only five-storey tower, topped by a simple, flat slab on which is placed a pile of 7 lead books, featuring neon inscriptions on the front with the names of the ten sefiroth that make up the Tree of Life and the very material of creation, according to the cosmology of Jewish mysticism. The reason there are only seven celestial palaces is that the ten sefiroth are divided up into two groups: the three upper sefiroth (which have no real influence on the physical world) and the seven lower sefiroth (which have a direct influence on our world).
2 Melancholia Composed of six storeys, with the top level formed by a closed-over L-shaped wall at a slightly acute angle, on which sits a slab holding up a pile of lead books and Dürer’s polyhedron from the 1513 engraving entitled “Melancholia”. Featured on the floor are “Falling Stars”, created on a sheet of glass by applying the numerical classification system of modern astronomy, which orders stars according to their colour, distance and mass.
3 Ararat Composed of six storeys, the name of this tower derives from the Armenian Mount Ararat, where Noah’s Ark is said to have come to rest. The Ark is represented by a lead model of a warship, resting on a slab held up by a single L-shaped support.
4 Magnetic field lines At 18 metres, this is the highest of the towers. It is composed of six storeys, with a sculpture as the single crowning element; beneath this element Kiefer has rolled out strips of lead on which he has applied photographic sequences featuring clouds and rocks. At the base of the construction is a movie camera for the use of lead film (the only material impervious to light and radiation).
5 and 6. JH&WH Called the “twin” towers because they rise up from a shared support base on which are scattered numbered meteorites/Sefiroth fashioned in molten lead. The crowning element of these two towers in an octagonal support holding up a slab on which Kiefer has arranged a pile of nine books and the neon inscription/title in capital letters that come together to form a whole with the word JHWH (the sequence of four letters that make up the word “God” in the Jewish Bible), with the open corner of each facing the others.
7 Falling Frames A six-storey tower with a similar crowning feature to JH&WH, but featuring a lower pile of books and with the corner of the support facing inwards. The Falling Frames are iron frames, containing a piece of glass, which lie on the floor at the foot of the construction.
The seen Heavenly Palaces
This installation owes its name to the seven heavenly palaces described in the ancient Sefer Hechalot (also known as the “Book of Palaces” and dating back to the 4th-5th century A.D.). This treatise tells us that he who wishes to ascend to the merkaba (or loréd), must pass through the Seven Heavens in order to come before God on his throne, and must therefore proceed through the Seven Celestial Rooms/Palaces, using magical hymns, words and symbols to elude the surveillance of the angels who keep watch over them. In order to express this symbolic path of spiritual initiation, inside HangarBicocca Anselm Kiefer has erected seven towers, weighing around 90 tonnes, built by assembling together 85 load-bearing corner supports in reinforced concrete weighing 6 tonnes each, created on the spot in the exhibition space using red and blue shipping containers as formworks, 42 slabs weighing 2.5 tonnes each and irregularly bored in the centre to create an open channel running right through each tower, 160 books in three different formats and 90 lead wedges. The elements that make up the constructions, from the reinforced concrete corner supports to the lead wedges and books, are simply positioned on top of one another, progressively layered to give the towers an air reminiscent of a Babel-like visual imbalance yet at the same time of a “miraculous” static equilibrium.
Each “palace” is topped by structural crowning elements and decorative elements that imbue them with a distinctive character that varies according to the subject and the title of each particular tower.
1 Sefiroth The only five-storey tower, topped by a simple, flat slab on which is placed a pile of 7 lead books, featuring neon inscriptions on the front with the names of the ten sefiroth that make up the Tree of Life and the very material of creation, according to the cosmology of Jewish mysticism. The reason there are only seven celestial palaces is that the ten sefiroth are divided up into two groups: the three upper sefiroth (which have no real influence on the physical world) and the seven lower sefiroth (which have a direct influence on our world).
2 Melancholia Composed of six storeys, with the top level formed by a closed-over L-shaped wall at a slightly acute angle, on which sits a slab holding up a pile of lead books and Dürer’s polyhedron from the 1513 engraving entitled “Melancholia”. Featured on the floor are “Falling Stars”, created on a sheet of glass by applying the numerical classification system of modern astronomy, which orders stars according to their colour, distance and mass.
3 Ararat Composed of six storeys, the name of this tower derives from the Armenian Mount Ararat, where Noah’s Ark is said to have come to rest. The Ark is represented by a lead model of a warship, resting on a slab held up by a single L-shaped support.
4 Magnetic field lines At 18 metres, this is the highest of the towers. It is composed of six storeys, with a sculpture as the single crowning element; beneath this element Kiefer has rolled out strips of lead on which he has applied photographic sequences featuring clouds and rocks. At the base of the construction is a movie camera for the use of lead film (the only material impervious to light and radiation).
5 and 6. JH&WH Called the “twin” towers because they rise up from a shared support base on which are scattered numbered meteorites/Sefiroth fashioned in molten lead. The crowning element of these two towers in an octagonal support holding up a slab on which Kiefer has arranged a pile of nine books and the neon inscription/title in capital letters that come together to form a whole with the word JHWH (the sequence of four letters that make up the word “God” in the Jewish Bible), with the open corner of each facing the others.
7 Falling Frames A six-storey tower with a similar crowning feature to JH&WH, but featuring a lower pile of books and with the corner of the support facing inwards. The Falling Frames are iron frames, containing a piece of glass, which lie on the floor at the foot of the construction.