Kiefer's intense preoccupation with history and mythology is also reflected in the series of different airplane sculptures made of lead. The artist gives this series the title "The Argonauts" and thus refers to the famous Argonaut myth and its hero Jason, who set out with the unearthly fast ship "Argo" accompanied by an illustrious company of heroes to bring the "Golden Fleece" back to Thessaly. Kiefer has repeatedly and intensively reworked the widely ramified, fascinating Jason myth in many of his works: "What the apples were for Cézanne, the story of the Argonauts is for me," Kiefer once said. Emphasizing the militant symbolism of the saga, in Kiefer's work Jason's swift ship becomes a fighter plane, another leitmotif in Kiefer's artistic output. The plane is made of heavy, archaic lead, the metal par excellence characteristic of Kiefer - this actually renders it incapable of flight, but it gains significance in the context of Kiefer's iconography of works and opens up new levels of interpretation that go beyond the saga of the Argonauts.
