Anselm Kiefer interview The artist creating a monumental legacy without finishing a painting
By Gareth Harris
Anselm Kiefer, the German-born, France-based master of the mythical and the grandiose has been bringing his brand of monumental art to audiences worldwide over the past half century. The artist is known for questioning Germany’s post-war identity, drawing on a range of cultural, literary and philosophical sources in a wide variety of media, from paintings and photographs to sculptures and installations. In 1992, having left Germany, Kiefer acquired La Ribaute, an old silk factory in Barjac, southern France. The site developed organically into a vast studio complex comprising pavilions, outdoor art installations, subterranean chambers and a five-level concrete amphitheatre (the complex has been likened to a human ant hill). The artist lived at the 40-hectare site, 70km north-west of Avignon, until 2007, when he relocated to a new studio space in Croissy-Beaubourg on the outskirts of Paris.
Kiefer continues to make his mark through permanent works and monuments, especially in France. In 2007 the artist unveiled a 10m-high commission, Athanor, on the walls of the Musée du Louvre’s Egyptian gallery. In 2020, Kiefer unveiled another permanent work at the Pantheon in Paris to mark the arrival of the French writer Maurice Genevoix’s coffin. The artist’s latest exhibition, Fallen Angels, opening at Palazzo Strozzi in Florence on 22 March, typically unpicks epic themes linked to religion, history and literature, prompting visitors to reconsider “our relationship between the spiritual and the material”, according to the organisers.
The Art Newspaper: The first monumental piece visitors will encounter at your Palazzo Strozzi exhibition is Angel’s Fall (2022-23), a huge painting in the courtyard that depicts the passage from the Book of Revelation describing the battle between the archangel Michael and the rebel angels.
Anselm Kiefer: This is something that I was always interested in because it says something about the state of the world. It’s a bird. It’s so imperfect. Life is so badly constructed—we have wars since the beginning, and it will not end. And there is theodicy [the religious and philosophical argument about the existence of evil and an omnipotent god], literally the justification of God, which proves that the world is good because God is good. God is good, but the world is not good. Gottfried Leibnitz [the 17th-century German philosopher] once said that the [real] world is the best of all [imagined] worlds but when the earthquake happened in Lisbon [in 1755], he changed his philosophy. The Christian religion says God is the best you can imagine; he knows all, he decides all. There’s a big contradiction in this.
Are you concerned about the state of the world and humanity?
At the moment, I’m more concerned than before because the world has become more complex. We had, in the 1970s and 1980s, two worlds—the West and the East. Then it seemed to be easier. It was clear. Before, the border was clear. But even then, it was life-threatening. I know about three situations where the nuclear atomic bomb exploded, not in a war, but by mistake.
The idea of the fallen angel, the rebellious angel plummeting into the abyss, continues in the painting Lucifer (2022-23), which will go on show in room one of the exhibition.
Yes, Lucifer is the other partner of God who works against God and is at the end defeated by Saint Michael. Then, later in the show, there are the Irradiated Paintings [1983-2023], which are destroyed by me through [the process of] irradiation.
These paintings, some of which have been created by submerging the pieces in baths of electrolysis, have been a key part of your practice for decades. More than 60 of them will fill the walls and ceiling of one of the largest rooms in Palazzo Strozzi.
Yes, they are a reflection of the world, as opposites of good and bad. They are destroyed by me, because I cannot make a chef-d’oeuvre [a masterpiece].
You mean you think that you’ve never created a masterpiece?
No. I try all the time, but I can’t, my talent is not enough. I never think a painting can be finished. It’s never finished, in my case. I have so many paintings. If you come to [the studio in] Paris, you would see all the long row of containers housing works from the late 1960s until now.
You will be displaying the Heroic Symbols photographs (1969) in the Florence exhibition, which show you replicating the Sieg Heil salute with your arm raised, reflecting how you confront German history. I am fascinated why you think it is important to put the photographs back on public display.
If I have to give a biography of my work, it starts here. It’s more an example of my working [practice]. I wouldn’t do it [now] because when I did this, it was at the end of 1960s; then nobody in Germany spoke about [the war], you know? But now you can see every day on the television in Germany something about this time. So nobody can say they are involved anymore; they’re all involved now.
