Although Anselm Kiefer’s work is routinely compared with the Gesamtkunstwerk, the «total work of art» pioneered by Richard Wagner, Disorders at the Borders represents the first time this relationship has been thoroughly investigated. But it is a relationship that involves much more than just aesthetics. Furthermore, it is a highly ambivalent one. The Gesamtkunstwerk was an embodiment of a certain view of nationhood, and nationhood is a concept that Kiefer has spe...