Ars Ignis. The Poetry of Destruction

In commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the inferno that destroyed the Herzogin Anna Amalia Bibliothek, the Spanish artist Anna Talens has developed a site-specific intervention which poetically explores the creative energy of fire.

Fire is destructive, but it can also be a creative force.

“Ars Ignis” is dedicated to those book fragments which no amount of restoration could salvage. The artist works with fragments of loose book pages and coarse bits of ash.

Her interventions can be found at two locations – in the historic Rococo Hall and in the modern Study Centre of the Herzogin Anna Amalia Bibliothek.

The installation “The Black Volcano” in the Rococo Hall, which was largely destroyed in the fire, consists of the ashes of burned books. The work highlights and forges a link to different ages in history – Anna Amalia’s and Goethe’s journeys to Italy, our fascination with forces of nature and ultimately the most recent catastrophe at this site – the library fire of 2004.

Its counterpart is “The White Archive” located in the library’s modern Study Centre. Not only can visitors discover the beauty of the preserved ash book fragments, but also the creative process which forges something new from fragments that were thought to be lost. International writers developed new texts based on themes found in the ash books.

Public readings of the texts will be held at the HAAB each day during Kunstfest Weimar from 2 to 6 September 2024.