An Artist’s Message “To Never Forget”

Anselm Kiefer, a German painter and sculptor has opened his first exhibition at Gagosian Gallery, New York since eight years. After reading the article , Kiefer’s work really impressed me, visually and intellectually with the messages he attempts to portray. His works incorporate materials such as straw, ash, clay, lead, and shellac. The materials stem from nature, industrial, and man-made.

His works are characterised by a dull/musty, nearly depressive, destructive style and are often done in large scale formats. In most of his works, the use of photography as an output surface is prevalent and earth and other raw materials of nature are often incorporated. It is also characteristic of his work to find signatures and/or names of people of historical importance, legendary figures or places particularly pregnant with history. All of these are encoded signals through which Kiefer seeks to process the past; this has resulted in his work being linked with a style called “New Symbolism.”

This exhibit really exemplifies a slightly different side of him through his new work of blend painting, sculpture and set design. Kiefer also incorporate elements of film-making, performance and photography, and marshal the forces of history, literature and religious thought. Although, he still keeps his original flavor intact by leaving the element of addressing controversial issues in recent history like the Holocaust. He was born in the last weeks of World War II, and the human cost and devastation of that conflict remain the spine and the hook of his art. For example, one of his works displayed in the exhibition is called “Occupations”, which signifies his expanded ambition, and a determination that we not miss the point and never forget what happened about six decades ago.

Kiefer's "Die Schechina"

Kiefer's "Steigend Sinke Nieder"