Die Sprache der Vögel

Snapshot

A monumental bronze by Anselm Kiefer stands in the courtyard of the Chiemseehof, Salzburg’s parliamentary building: the final work in the Walk of Modern Art. Eagle wings rise from a stack of books, reportedly around 4.2 metres tall, at the seat of state government.

The Story

The Walk of Modern Art distributes large-scale contemporary works across Salzburg’s public spaces, placing them in tension with the city’s baroque heritage. The trail ends here, in the courtyard of the Chiemseehof, with a work by Anselm Kiefer, one of the most significant German artists of the post-war era.

Kiefer has worked throughout his career with the accumulated weight of European history: mythology, catastrophe, the destruction and partial recovery of culture, the question of what survives when civilisations collapse. The sculpture, believed to be cast from a lead version he made in 1989, shows a pair of massive eagle wings rising from a towering stack of books. The books are the body. The wings are what breaks free, or tries to.

Installed at the seat of the Salzburg state government, the image carries a particular charge. Eagles are the emblems of states and empires. Books are what those states produce, suppress, and burn. The title, “Die Sprache der Vögel,” refers to the mystical tradition in which birds carry messages between the human and divine worlds, a tradition found across cultures from ancient Persia to medieval Europe.

That this sits quietly in a working government courtyard, accessible to anyone who walks in, rather than in a museum, is part of the point.

Visiting

• Location: Courtyard of the Chiemseehof, Salzburg’s parliamentary building, central Salzburg.
• Getting there: On foot from the Altstadt, near the Residenz and Kapitelplatz area.
• Hours: Check locally; the courtyard is part of a working government building and access may be restricted at times.
• Cost: Free.
• Time needed: 10-15 minutes.
• Tips: Part of the Walk of Modern Art trail. The walk can be done in any order; this is the final numbered work.