Anselm Kiefer Unveils a Preview of His New 78-Foot Painting The work will be part of Kiefer’s landmark exhibition in Amsterdam
By Verity Babbs
As part of his highly anticipated upcoming exhibition in 2025 spread between Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum and the Stedelijk Museum, Anselm Kiefer will be debuting a 78-foot-long painting. This week, the artist has revealed a preview of the monumental work.
The exhibition “Sag mir wo die Blumen sind” will be the first time in history that the Van Gogh Museum, which opened its doors to the public in 1973, and the Stedelijk Museum, a central point of Dutch culture since 1895, collaborate on an exhibition.
Sag mir wo die Blumen sind is also the title of Kiefer’s new 78-foot-long painting, which will fill the space around the Stedelijk Museum’s staircase. The painting has been created from emulsion, oil, and acrylic paint in addition to straw, steel, charcoal, dried flowers, gold leaf, and sediment of electrolysis.
Ahead of the exhibition, the Van Gogh Museum and Stedelijk have shared a preview photograph of the work before its installation. Kiefer is also creating a second site-specific spatial installation called Steigend, steigend, sinke nieder (“Rising, rising, sinking down”) made from lead and photographs.
Rein Wolfs, director of the Stedelijk, said the installation at the institution, including the 78-foot-work, “will be an immersive experience.”
Kiefer is known for working at a grand scale. One of his largest paintings is housed in an airplane hangar at Kiefer’s expansive art complex, La Ribaute, in Barjac, France. The 30-foot-high painting of a nude man under a starry sky was completed for the Louvre in 2007. His exhibition in 2022 at the Doge Palace in Venice covered the opulent halls in his monumental canvases.
There will be 25 works by Kiefer on display at the Van Gogh Museum, which will be contextualized with seven paintings by Van Gogh, including Wheatfield with Crows (1890). Kiefer’s work will include 13 early drawings held in the Stedelijk’s collection as well as new paintings making their exhibition debut and films directed by the artist.
