Anselm Kiefer Böse Blumen, 2018-2021

Since the beginning of his career, Kiefer has drawn on the legacy and strength of important poets. In a process characterised by recurring motifs, he reworks and combines literary references, often embedding them in symbolically charged landscapes. The title of Böse Blumen (2018-2021) refers to the famous cycle of poems, Les Fleurs du mal, by the French poet Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867). Like Baudelaire's poems, Anselm Kiefer's works mercilessly examine the very foundations of human existence. In a complex web of religious and mythological references, a world view is revealed that is shaped by a reciprocal relationship between love and pain, despair and hope, destruction and renewal. In Böse Blumen, Kiefer captures on canvas this inescapable cycle of life inherent in all forms of existence. Böse Blumen shows a close-up, bird's-eye view of a patch of earth and exposes its torn, dried and deeply furrowed surface. Despite the apparent barrenness of the ground, flowers sprout from the cracks in the earth, their bright heads forming a strong contrast to the dark colours of the dirt.