What did you see, Mr Obrist?

You were in Salzburg too, weren't you? We just missed each other there! What did you see there?
The Anselm Kiefer exhibition at Thaddaeus Ropac, which places focus on the Rhine. The exhibition has a lot to do with Kiefer’s childhood memories. He often quotes the Italian philosopher Andrea Emo, who once said: ‘There is nothing new except in memory.’

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You can also see him in one painting, a rare self-portrait, right?
That's right. Then there is the group of works ‘The Rhine’, the actual portrait of a river, and the path to the Rhine, ‘Waldsteige’. Kiefer grew up in a house near Rastatt. He told me in Salzburg that he bought it back. It is now being turned into a museum.

In one room of the exhibition, you can see drawings by Kiefer that he made of the Rhine as a child. One picture shows his age: he was just eleven years old.
And one of these pictures shows a ship that is almost sinking. Which reminded me of his famous phrase ‘art will survive its ruins.’ He told me how he remembers his walks in the forest today: suddenly the glowing river appeared in front of him.

I was also moved by a second, small exhibition at Ropac: ‘Joseph Beuys and John Cage - Eyes that Listen, Ears that See’, curated by Andrea Maurer.
Yes, this little-known collaboration between Beuys and Cage. They wrote letters to each other, Cage also dedicated a score to Beuys. And there is a print that they both signed as a collaboration. The third person who plays a role in the exhibition is the video artist Nam June Paik, who was very involved in bringing Cage to the Rhineland in the 1960s. Cage played a concert for the Festum Fluxorum Fluxus in Düsseldorf in 1963, where he also met Beuys. Incidentally, this concert was also important for Gerhard Richter, as he once told me.

Read the full conversation in the September issue of WELTKUNST.