At SLAM, Anselm Kiefer’s Material Transformations |
Anselm Kiefer, Am Rhein (On the Rhine), 2025. 30 ft. 10 1/16 in. × 27 ft. 6 11/16 in. × 3 15/16 in. Collection of the artist and courtesy Gagosian. Photo: Dan Bradica
When viewing works of art, we often forget that each piece’s foundation lies in the making. How was it crafted? Using what materials? What did it require of the artist to make this? How did it get where it is right now? How many people did it take to move and install the work? But these questions feel unavoidable when engaging with Anselm Kiefer’s work. His paintings are vast, 12×36 feet, and heavy—one weighs 1.3 tons. Their dense layering of material—tar, melted lead, steel—along with embedded poems, myths, history, literature and names, creates an atmosphere of explosive ingenuity. And with so many worlds of information compressed into each piece, it is nearly impossible not to be mesmerized.
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See all of our newslettersWhat you are seeing is the result of an artist relentlessly at work. There needs to be space, lots of space around his paintings to frame both the layers of material and the layers of meaning. The Saint Louis Art Museum (SLAM) has achieved this so majestically that it stuns in “Anselm Kiefer: Becoming the Sea,” which presents the artist’s work in a way that allows it to be experienced fully, in a venue and setting that feel perfectly matched. The museum was built in 1904 for the........