Anselm Kiefer - Uraeus

Uraeus is Anselm Kiefer's first US site-specific public sculpture. Commissioned by Public Art Fund and Tishman Speyer, and presented by Gagosian, the work consists of a gigantic open book with eagle's wings 30 feet in span, both made of lead, on top of a 20-foot-tall lead-clad stainless steel column. Clustered around the base are further outsize lead books, while a large snake coils up the column. Lead is one of the artist's preferred materials owing to its soft, fluid properties traditionally associated with alchemical transformation, especially its second stage: dissolution.