Anselm Kiefer. Paintings

About

The presentation in our gallery space Am Kupfergraben 10 in Berlin marks the fourth cooperation with the artist. The first solo exhibition in 2008 was dedicated to the artist’s complete series »Heroische Sinnbilder« (Heroic Symbols), followed by a display of artist books in honour of Anselm Kiefer receiving the »Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels« (Peace Prize of the German Book Trade). In 2013 an exhibition of large woodcuts exemplifying the mythical theme of the river »Rhine« was realised.

Our forthcoming exhibition premieres a selection of paintings from a new series of works that were created throughout the last two years. Anselm Kiefer dedicates his large-scale canvases to authors; his paintings are poetic analogies of literature, translating the motif of a narration and the verses of a poem into the domain of painting. In Anselm Kiefer’s picture »Waldsteig (for Adalbert Stifter)« (Forest Path) the eponymous narrative by Adalbert Stifter (1845) finds its transcendence in the protagonist’s dwelling on tracks and clearings, under the »forest’s green ceiling« and its sublime illumination. Kiefer’s painting is the pictorial evocation of this narrative, exploring transformation and purification.

In the painting »Geist über den Wassern« (Spirit above the Waters) Anselm Kiefer exposes an iridescent, light-suffused and elegiac interpretation of a poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe from 1779 titled »Gesang der Geister über den Wassern« (Song of the Spirits over the Waters) - in these verses the poet projects the »wavering human soul« onto perpetual natural occurrences. Anselm Kiefer’s painting is a new path towards a pictorial language to see in the signs of nature the elementary realm of our experiences. The third work »Herbst« (Autumn) alters time and space, bearing a sensory view of nature without pathos. The painting is not a pastorale; it is a work of mystic, distant light.