Anselm Kiefer: Hommage 脿 un po猫te
Poetry is the only possible reality. Everything else is an illusion.鈥� Anselm Kiefer, 2021
Hommage 脿 un po猫te (Homage to a poet)is an exhibition of new works by the German artist Anselm Kiefer, taking place at Thaddaeus Ropac Paris Pantin from 9 January until 11 May 2022. In the eighteen large-scale paintings on view, he pays tribute to poets Ingeborg Bachmann, Paul Celan, Osip Mandelstam and August Graf von Platen, bringing together image and language in elegiac landscapes inhabited by memory. The exhibition follows Anselm Kiefer鈥檚 show at the Grand Palais 脡ph茅m猫re dedicated to Paul Celan, whose work has had a profound influence on the painter鈥檚 practice throughout his career.
Poems are 鈥榣ike buoys in the sea鈥� for Anselm Kiefer, who thought of becoming a writer before he turned to painting. 鈥榊ou swim from one to the other,鈥� he writes in his journal in 2017, 鈥榳ithout them you鈥檙e without direction, lost. They are the handholds where something masses together in the infinite expanse.鈥� Before the poem, however, comes the painting. Bunkers from the Atlantic Wall, buildings in ruins, wheat fields and snow-laden forests emerge from thick impasto in the paintings on view in the exhibition. As Anselm Kiefer works, he holds fragments of poems in his mind, combining, as art historian Andrea Lauterwein writes, their 鈥榓uditory remanence with the retinal remanence of the image鈥�.
Throughout his extensive 艙uvre, Anselm Kiefer is concerned with history and memory, their preservation and erosion. Born as the Second World War was drawing to a close, the artist grew up in a time during which many in Germany were struggling to face the horrors of the conflict and acknowledge the atrocities perpetrated in the Holocaust. His works emerge from these years of silence, like monuments to the trauma of a generation. The poems of Ingeborg Bachmann (1926鈥�1973) and Paul Celan (1920鈥�1970) gave voice to the emptiness and the grief left by the war. Their words reverberate throughout the works in the exhibition.
Anselm Kiefer鈥檚 process is alchemical, allowing words, images and materials to merge and mutate on the canvas. In works like Oh Halme der Nacht (2020) and F眉r Paul Celan - Angewintertes (2014鈥�2020), he incorporates substances that directly refer to the subject matter of the paintings: straw in the wheat fields and pieces of porcelain in the snow scenes. Several of the artist鈥檚 new works feature a technique in which he applies shellac 鈥� a naturally occurring varnish 鈥� melting and burning it onto the painting to create an opalescent effect. Next to smoke-like forms or apparitions, the material adds an unprecedented, almost spiritual dimension to Anselm Kiefer鈥檚 already metaphysical paintings.
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Poetry is the only possible reality. Everything else is an illusion.鈥� Anselm Kiefer, 2021
Hommage 脿 un po猫te (Homage to a poet)is an exhibition of new works by the German artist Anselm Kiefer, taking place at Thaddaeus Ropac Paris Pantin from 9 January until 11 May 2022. In the eighteen large-scale paintings on view, he pays tribute to poets Ingeborg Bachmann, Paul Celan, Osip Mandelstam and August Graf von Platen, bringing together image and language in elegiac landscapes inhabited by memory. The exhibition follows Anselm Kiefer鈥檚 show at the Grand Palais 脡ph茅m猫re dedicated to Paul Celan, whose work has had a profound influence on the painter鈥檚 practice throughout his career.
Poems are 鈥榣ike buoys in the sea鈥� for Anselm Kiefer, who thought of becoming a writer before he turned to painting. 鈥榊ou swim from one to the other,鈥� he writes in his journal in 2017, 鈥榳ithout them you鈥檙e without direction, lost. They are the handholds where something masses together in the infinite expanse.鈥� Before the poem, however, comes the painting. Bunkers from the Atlantic Wall, buildings in ruins, wheat fields and snow-laden forests emerge from thick impasto in the paintings on view in the exhibition. As Anselm Kiefer works, he holds fragments of poems in his mind, combining, as art historian Andrea Lauterwein writes, their 鈥榓uditory remanence with the retinal remanence of the image鈥�.
Throughout his extensive 艙uvre, Anselm Kiefer is concerned with history and memory, their preservation and erosion. Born as the Second World War was drawing to a close, the artist grew up in a time during which many in Germany were struggling to face the horrors of the conflict and acknowledge the atrocities perpetrated in the Holocaust. His works emerge from these years of silence, like monuments to the trauma of a generation. The poems of Ingeborg Bachmann (1926鈥�1973) and Paul Celan (1920鈥�1970) gave voice to the emptiness and the grief left by the war. Their words reverberate throughout the works in the exhibition.
Anselm Kiefer鈥檚 process is alchemical, allowing words, images and materials to merge and mutate on the canvas. In works like Oh Halme der Nacht (2020) and F眉r Paul Celan - Angewintertes (2014鈥�2020), he incorporates substances that directly refer to the subject matter of the paintings: straw in the wheat fields and pieces of porcelain in the snow scenes. Several of the artist鈥檚 new works feature a technique in which he applies shellac 鈥� a naturally occurring varnish 鈥� melting and burning it onto the painting to create an opalescent effect. Next to smoke-like forms or apparitions, the material adds an unprecedented, almost spiritual dimension to Anselm Kiefer鈥檚 already metaphysical paintings.
Artists on show
