Who by Fire

In attempting to offer a proper verbalization of Anselm Kiefer’s picture Your Golden Hair Margarete—as a visual realization of Paul Celan’s poem “Death Fugue”—what should be taken into account is not only the picture’s visual appearance but also its secret, which revolves around the Judeo-German differend. The values of gold and origin present in the picture are related exclusively to Margarete, as a delegate of the German people dwelling within the sacred in-between space opened up between earth and sky. The German people are also in full possession of the value of fire, as a poetical metaphor of the German soul, identified with the non-metaphysical, transgressive ek-sistence of Heidegger’s collectivized Dasein. Inversely, the value of ashes is related to Shulamith, as a delegate of the Jewish people, who lack a dwelling space of their own and are dependent on the whims of the “Meister from Germany.” Although Shulamith is absent from the picture, she is hosted within it as a spectral presence that continues to haunt Germany. Kiefer’s picture could thus be portrayed from an ethical perspective as a site of spectral hospitality hosting the absent Shulamith.