Anselm Kiefer

Anselm Kiefer

Anselm Kiefer (b. 1945) is one of the most influential post-war German artists, renowned for his monumental paintings, sculptures, and installations that confront history, memory, and myth. His work draws deeply from German cultural identity, the trauma of the Second World War, and the uneasy legacy of the Holocaust, often layering personal reflection with collective memory.

Kiefer’s canvases are thick, scorched, and alchemical—combining oil, ash, clay, lead, and straw into vast, heavily textured surfaces that resist traditional notions of painting. These materials carry their own symbolism: lead as a metal of transformation and weight; straw as both fragility and fuel; ash as residue of destruction. His practice extends into sculpture and installation, where ruined architecture, burnt books, and mythic symbols inhabit sprawling landscapes of decay and rebirth.

Mythology, literature, and philosophy run through Kiefer’s art. He revisits figures from Norse and Germanic legend, Jewish mysticism, and ancient history, alongside poets such as Paul Celan and Ingeborg Bachmann. Through these references, his works confront the cycles of destruction and renewal that mark human history, often invoking a sense of the sublime—at once devastating and transcendent.

Living and working between Germany and France, Kiefer has created some of the most ambitious contemporary works of art, including entire landscapes of abandoned towers, greenhouses, and studios turned into installations. His practice insists on the necessity of remembering, no matter how painful, and on the power of myth and material to embody history.